So, here is my lateral ceph.
You can only sort of see my overbite. I'm no expert in reading x-rays, but it doesn't seem particularly noticeable here. You can see how my front teeth stick out a little (a huge improvement from the buck teeth I had as a thumb-sucking kid!). Both my maxilla and mandible are retruded, and so both will need to come forward in surgery, the mandible slightly more so that my teeth are in a class I position, instead of being smack on top of each other like they are know.
What's interesting in this x-ray is the curvature in my cervical spine. This gives me a forward head position, which causes a lot of tension in my neck, back, and shoulders. An orthopedic doctor I saw told me that my neck curves in this way to compensate for the misalignment of my jaw. (You can see how the cervical vertebrae bump up against my jaw, pushing it more forward than it would normally sit.) Unfortunately, the forward head position won't be fixed automatically by the surgery and having the jaw in the right place. I'll have to have physical therapy to retrain my muscles and my brain to no longer compensate for my jaw.
There's so much to think about! I'm actually grateful that surgery is at least a year and a half away so that I can prepare myself for it and get used to the idea.
thats so interesting to see how the spine curves, from all the xrays ive done i never really paid attention to it...thats what ima do next time i get an xray done look at the spine
ReplyDeletea year and a half may seem long but its going to fly by fast..
do you know when your gettn braces? cuz once u have them on things to start to happen =D
cant wait to see how things go with you
Thanks Mai! I got my bottom braces in December and I'm supposed to get my top ones at the end of the month. :)
ReplyDeletea 6 month gap, do you know how come they put your braces on at different time? thats really interesting
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