Intro Time

(May 30th, 2016)

Hi there!

First thing's first.

So I've always had this underbite... but I never really thought about it much. I've actually only fully realized it twice in my life.

At 16, my parents took me to an orthodontist and he took all these pictures of my face. When I saw my side profile, I was like, "WHAT? Is that what my face looks like? That's horrendous!" The only option for me, apparently, was this crazy combination of braces and jaw surgery that would last about 3 years. As a junior in high school, I'm thinking, "THREE YEARS?! Uh, no." Factors that played into us just kinda letting it go:

My teeth looked pretty straight already, both on top and bottom.
I already had a nice smile. (So vain, I know.)
I never looked at my side profile anyway, so I'd never notice!
My mom totally poopoo-ed my sister's braces. "Those 5 teeth they pulled are going to make all her teeth fall out when she's old!"

Years later, I started to notice movement in my teeth. The lower teeth were getting a bit crowded... and something weird was happening to my top teeth. I couldn't figure out precisely what was going on, but, you know, life happens "la di da!" and then (like, a dozen years later) a whole bunch of stuff made me realize my teeth were jacked up. My "pretty straight" teeth, that used to sit on top of each other, were now kind of staggered where one top tooth bit over the corresponding bottom tooth and the other top tooth sat behind it's bottom counterpart a bit. That's all fine (cuz nobody else would ever really notice and who wants braces as an adult), except that:

My top two teeth were a little wiggly. (That's not good.)
I had a lot of gum recession, and the trauma of my underbite/crossbite was contributing to making it worse.
I started getting this dull jaw pain once every few years (that would last about 2-3 weeks).

So then I visit a few orthodontists, sit on my butt thinking about it for a few more years, and finally get started. Why did I sit on my butt? Cuz I was hoping that I could get away with not having surgery. Unfortunately, I needed it. Ugh. Oh, that's the only other time I realized what a crazy underbite I had - those orthodontic side profile pictures! "Honey, is this what you see when you look at me? This is terrible! Oh my god!!!" All of my friends were basically like, "I don't know. That's just you. You look fine." Which, to me, meant "You look like someone with an underbite, duh!" What's crazy is that I seriously never noticed it. Nobody (well, except for my sister and mother) ever pointed it out to me or made fun of me because of it. And (I'm just gonna be totally honest here) I kinda thought I was pretty. I mean, pretty enough. You know what I mean, right?

The Plan: 9 months in braces, jaw surgery, 9 months in braces.

I got my braces put on in June 2015. Jaw surgery would then be summer 2016... (uh, that's now)

Here are some random pictures of me before we start, so you can get a sense of how I really look. Uh, or rather, how I looked before the surgery. Sniff.