Well this is new.

I'm going to start by saying, I do not have a severe case. I have an under bite, but it's minor compared to the cases I've seen through all of my research. Most people can't tell, this is because I'm constantly masking it by literally pulling my bottom jaw back as far as I can. It's painful when I do it for too long. I mainly do it for pictures. For the most part my teeth are straight, besides some that are going there own way, and I also have two pencil teeth up top (hate those little guys).  About two months ago I started noticing that I'm really not happy with my teeth, or my bite. I've always had an under bite, it never bothered me much, but most recently my top and bottom teeth are edge to edge, which is causing a lot of sensitivity to a couple of the bottom teeth. With that said, my thought was, ok, I have a good job with great benefits, a boyfriend who loves me and wouldn't mind the braces, and I'm a grown woman who isn't embarrassed of the little things anymore. A couple days later I was having my consultation. Thinking this would be an easy fix, I told the ortho that I wanted straight teeth and my bite corrected. He looked at the X-rays and said "well we can get your teeth straight, but we can't correct your bite, in fact, your bite will get worse." My thoughts.....(Ummm I'm sorry...What?!) definitely NOT the answer I was looking for. He explained that the only way to fix my under bite was to get jaw surgery. My thoughts...(Ha! yeeeaah not gonna happen) Then he went on to say that my issue is strictly skeletal and the braces can not perform that kind of movement. I was so sad, hope was lost, the surgery was just not something I would ever consider. I asked, can't you put rubber bands on my teeth to pull the jaw back ? He told me that would only work if I were like 10 years old. My jaw was already a full grown adult set in its ways, no chance of changing it, unless of course I got the surgery. I thought of this all day,and started researching the heck out of it. The correct medical term is Orthognathic Surgery, and seeing all of those swollen, bruised up faces scared the crap out of me. I have never had any surgery in my life and no broken bones, (knock on wood) so this was just such a crazy idea to me. Ok, so as I kept researching I was finding all of the success stories and how people were so happy they had gotten it done, and that they were so happy with their smiles. I wanted that, so, I decided at that point, I wanted to start the process.