* My teeth are now adorned with braces.  Almost all my extended family, friends, and acquaintances react to the braces with surprise, as it's not obvious to them why I need braces now.  Yes, my teeth are straight (I wore braces in high school).  But unfortunately, my jaws are pretty severely misaligned -- to the point where it's difficult to chew and even articulate certain words at times.  I was supposed to fix the alignment through braces + surgery when I was in high school.  But right before the surgery, my parents decided that they didn't want to proceed; in their opinion, the recovery time and perceived risks associated with the surgery were too great while the benefits from the surgery were too marginal [in their eyes] to proceed.  So the braces came off.  Unfortunately, over the last 10 years, the misalignment of my jaws [and its consequences] have become more pronounced.  So I've decided to address and fix it before it gets any worse (and while I'm still relatively young and healthy enough for my body to [hopefully] recover quicker). 

The whole process from making the decision to proceed to getting the braces to now preparing for surgery has been quite involved.  I've reconnected with my high school orthodontist who's the most familiar with my case and history; thankfully, he's still in practice (probably close to retirement though).  I was hoping technology had changed significantly over the last 10 years to make surgery unnecessary, but unfortunately, that's not the case.  The good news is that the profession has 10 more years of experience with the procedure, so there's much more information available about how to avoid complications and how to speed recovery.  The sequence of events surrounding the surgery is unchanged from before -- 1) braces to get my teeth aligned for surgery, 2) surgery to align the jaws, 3) keep braces on for 6 months after surgery to fine-tune the bite.  So I think I'm looking at about 1.5 years of braces.  Luckily, I have the clear brackets so I'm not completely re-living my adolescence (the wire is still visible though).

Before getting the braces, my orthodontist instructed me to get all my wisdom teeth removed.  He recommended that I utilize the same oral surgeon for wisdom teeth removal and the jaw surgery.  So I did lots of research on oral surgeons available through my insurance.  I found a great one in Pasadena, and my wisdom teeth extraction experience went incredibly smoothly (I felt very little discomfort / pain afterwards).  There are some complications with my insurance which may prohibit me from going to the same surgeon for my jaw surgery, but I'm really hoping that everything will be resolved by next year so that he can perform the procedure.  *fingers crossed*

When I consulted the oral surgeon about the jaw surgery, he recommended that I undergo some jaw-muscle therapy to help correct some of the habits that have caused my jaw alignment to worsen (the other surgeon that I consulted recommended similar therapy).  Apparently, the misalignment will just relapse after surgery if my jaw-muscle habits aren't corrected.  So I'm now undergoing treatment called myofunctional therapy, which will continue up to and after my surgery.

So in conclusion, much of my life now revolves around my teeth.  To add to the flurry, I recently established care with a new dentist that my sister and brother-in-law go to.  So here's a run-down of my whole dental team:

* Dentist, orthodontist, oral surgeon, myofunctional therapist

It's been an interesting experience, to say the least.  Here's hoping for a beautiful bite after it's all done!