Frustrated

I have had braces for a little over a year now. My teeth look great, but it is now up to my orthodontist to give me the go ahead on surgery. It seems he is being quite a perfectionist, which is great except I am becoming very impatient as my jaw is jutting out a mile from my face!  I want to undergo surgery earlier in the summer so I will be ready for school in the fall. This fall is the start of my program for dental hygiene and I am worried that I will not be physically ready. The first semester entails learning how to use the tools in each other's mouth which requires me to open my mouth a great deal. I figure the earlier I get the surgery done the better. Wednesday the 30th I have an appointment with my ortho, so I am hoping he tells me some good news that I am almost there. It is really killing me not having any idea of when my surgery may be! All I need is a date and I will be content.

My Story

Let me start by telling you a little about myself. My name is Valerie, and I am 21 years old. I have known that I would need jaw surgery to correct my underbite since I was 13, and now that it is getting closer this dream is becoming more of a reality. I have a what is known as a class III malocclusion and I am in the final months of braces, before I undergo double Jaw Surgery and a possibly a genioplasty, some time this summer to correct it. Words cannot explain how excited I am to finally have surgery! Having an underbite has definitely had a negative affect on my confidence throughout my life, but has gotten much worse as I have gotten older. I have gotten to the point where I do not even want people to take pictures of me. If I am not at a certain angle I hate the picture. I have this huge gap in my life with no pictures, and that really upsets me. I have decided to start using my camera more though, so that I can have some before pictures to compare to my after pictures. I think that I have gotten to the point when I get depressed, I just think forward to the end result, and how it is worth waiting for. Some people do not understand why I want to have this surgery done, and think that it is just in vain. Well maybe some of it is in vain, but it is also functional issues driving me to get this surgery. Sometimes my jaw tends to seize up, or crack. The fact that my bottom teeth jut out a mile in front of my upper teeth makes it very hard to eat. I think that people that have aligned jaws take for granted something as simple as eating a sandwich or an apple. With an underbite it is nearly impossible to eat a sandwich without everything coming out! I just want to be able to eat normally, and not be so self conscious about what I look like in pictures. Although everyone may not understand why I need this surgery, luckily I have a wonderful boyfriend who supports my decision to undergo jaw surgery. I am not quite sure when I will be having surgery, but if all goes as planned  it will happen this summer! Here are a few pictures of my bite.

Hiding my Underbite

Right Profile

Smiling Showing my underbite

Left Profile