Thinking about it!

(You may think I'm smiling in this picture but I'm just closing my teeth as best I can)


I was going to write a short Blog but I really wanted to share so much more it turned into more of a novel. It is a couple of days after surgery but I will bring you up to date.

2 years ago I decided to go ahead and have surgery for an issue that had bothered me for a very long time. I, like many others, had an issue with my bite. For those who have a normal or relatively normal bite, you probably won't understand why someone would go to such extremes just for a nice smile but to me it was more than that.

I had always had an open bite and a receding lower jaw which meant my jaw could never shut completely. My lips generally rested open, which doesn't create the most intelligent looking expression. My two back teeth on each side were the only teeth that were functional. The others were just there to fill up space and to top it off I had a crooked smile which actually wasn't so bad.

I was always embarrassed as a teenager to meet friends out for a meal. I can recount endless times when I have bitten into a burger and been left juggling a mess in my hands and a piece of tomato hanging from my mouth because I wasn't able to bite through it. Biting the topping off a pizza and being left with the crust. Salad sandwiches are worst. There was no way of biting through a slice of ham so it was all in or nothing. It got to a point where I would prefer to just order chips and forget the burger. It was just too hard. I do thank The Lord for cutlery.

The other issue I had was my profile. I had all cheeks and very little chin, which is very cute when your a kid but as an adult, not very elegant or glamorous, which is how I imagined I would be when I grew up. Profile pictures were not something I was a fan of. I would cringe each time I saw a picture that had been taken from the side and pray that it wouldn't be kept by anyone.

So, here I was approaching 50, and my new dentist says to me "have you ever thought about closing that gap in your bite and straightening your teeth?" At first I thought he was joking. No-one had suggested that before and I had gone to a dentist every year. He continued with different scenarios to straighten my teeth and referred me to an Orthodontist.

The Orthodontist encouraged me to google others that had had the procedure but also said he could get a great outcome for me. Now this was worth listening to. They can do amazing things, but for him to say he could give me a perfect bite and "a more aesthetically pleasing profile", I was hooked.

I made the decision to be the best Me I could be. To enjoy flashing a brilliant smile, go out for dinner and select whatever I wanted from the menu, enjoy having photos taken from any angle. Why shouldn't I feel like one of the beautiful girls in the room? Why shouldn't my husband have the best Me he can have.

Some people may call it plain vanity. Maybe it was, but to me, it was a genetic defect, a deformity of the jaw; that I had just found out, after struggling with it for 30 years, I was able to change.