My first post!

Hey everyone!!!

Wow, this is my first post ever. Please bare with me for a while as I'm still trying to edit the page and make it look good for all of you :)

As you can tell from the url name, this blog is going to be about my upcoming jaw surgery! With that being said, after I get comfortable with the look of this blog and all the progress I've made on it, I probably won't want to go and create a new, personal one after I've healed from the surgery and there isn't much more new information to post about. So, I've decided to make this kind of my "general" blog. From time to time I will probably post some "personal" stuff, such as... raging about my annoying sister?

This is kind of sad... I've never blogged before! I don't know what to do, or how to do it. It's kinda like the first time you have sex I did not just say that.

Anyways, I feel like making this a general blog will work out for the best, so while I'm blogging about my experience through the whole jaw surgery, you guys can get to know a little bit more about me :) Only if you want to, that is. If not, then just ignore the posts unrelated to jaw surgery.

I thought I'd use this opportunity of writing my first post to kind of talk about my surgery and what they will be working on and my orthodontic work prior and yada yada yada.

SO I started orthodontic work when i was 14. I went through different measures of fixing my teeth, from a metal expander in my mouth to headgear that I never wore and then finally braces. Before I had my braces on is when I was sent to a well known surgeon down the street from my orthodontist. Talk about convenient. First I had my wisdom teeth removed about a month after my first meeting with my surgeon, which was about September 2010. That was an incredibly hard time for me (I explained more in my About Me). Then 2 months later, I got my braces on. I was supposed to have them on for a year - a year and a half MAX before my surgery. Yeah. Right.

I finally got my consultation with my surgeon 2 years later, this past October. We booked the date for April 12, 2013. I can't believe how close it is. I'm scared, nervous, but also extremely excited, because if all goes well, my results are going to boost my confidence and happiness.

If you haven't got bored of reading my rambling crap, you probably wanna know what is wrong with my jaw to need to get surgery. WELL, I need to fix a slight Open Bite, a Short Lower Jaw, and after further discussion we decided I would get my upper jaw operated on and have some bone taken out to fix my "toothy smile". An Open Bite is where your back molars touch but your front upper and lower teeth cannot touch, even if you shift your lower jaw forward. A Short Lower Jaw is exactly what is sounds like. Keep in mind though, that i have a very mild case of each issue. A toothy smile is where you show more gum then "normal" when you smile.

The biggest issue I experience with my jaw is the position of my lips. When my teeth touch, my lips don't. I have to pucker my lips and force them shut, even "suction cup" them to my teeth, just to keep my lips closed.  I don't experience pain (although my jaw clicks on one side), or trouble chewing, or trouble speaking. This surgery is more about preventing problems, rather then fixing them. It will (hopefully) prevent TMJ pain, help my sleeping, keep my back molars from grinding down to practically nothing, and so on.

My biggest concern is getting the upper jaw surgery. I'm terrified of it changing my looks, yet some days I feel that because I'm not experiencing any issues, that I am really doing this for cosmetic reasons. Because I am still having concerns, I called my surgeons office today and booked an appointment for next week, just to ask him a few more questions before I go in in a month and get the measurements and impressions of my teeth. Since I've gone on so much already, I'm going to save the details of the surgery and the risks and whatever until after I've seen him again.

I hope this post was good... pretty long, I admit. But if you've read this far then I'm very flattered :) Thanks for reading, I'll post again soon!