How it all began...

This is my first blog ever!
I hope that by blogging, someone else can benefit should he or she have to go through a similar process. My fears and anxieties have been comforted by reading the experiences of others. I am in my last year of school to be an acupuncturist, and after reading through some of the other blogs, I realized that I may have a different perspective to offer. I plan to document my orthodontic, surgical, and prosthodontic experiences as well as my alternative approach to supplement the western medical process. I will be putting together my own treatment plan that will consist of acupuncture, massage, and nutritional/herbal supplementation geared toward healing. I really hope it makes a difference and that it will ease the process! At least it makes me feel like I have some say in the whole process, which will be important.

Here's my story:
I don't have enamel on any of my teeth. Never have. It runs in my family, which is a bummer. So growing up, my teeth looked yellow and bumpy. I didn't know until probably my teenage years why my teeth looked that way. By then I had crowns on all my teeth, so they didn't look as bad. Needless to say, I have spent a lot of time in the dentist's chair.

I think that the dentists didn't really know what to do with me, which may be why I never had braces for my overbite. It may be that my parents didn't have the understanding or the money to consider braces. I really don't remember or know exactly how I got to the age of 34 and am now faced with the overwhelming knowledge that I will be spending $80,000 for braces, surgery, and mouth reconstruction.

The formal name of my "condition" is amelogensis imperfecta. By trying to do things on the cheap, as was necessary, I have a mouth full of mismatched, worn out crowns and temporaries. I have had some of the temporary caps on for so long that I may have decay as a result. I need to replace them, but the problem is that my mouth is such that any new crowns will offset my bite so much that I will have TMJ problems. One of my temporaries broke (because it was worn down so thin) and when the dentist tried to cover it with a new temporary, that was the only tooth touching when I bit down. They couldn't make the cap any flatter for me to resolve the bite. So, I was referred to a prosthodontist. I knew this was coming at some point, because I've been through it before. About 7 or 8 years ago, I went to a prosthodontist who sent me for consults with an ortho and surgeon and they all told me the same thing I'm being told now. However, I didn't have the money and thankfully, the prosthodontist did what he could to get me by. I have moved to a different state since then and have not been a good patient. So, here I am going through all the consults, x-rays, molds, and measurements once again. In order to properly cover all my teeth with real crowns, not temporary caps, I have to have braces and surgery. When I went to the surgical consult, I couldn't remember why I was doing this. Orthognathic surgery is SCARY! Thirty percent of patients have nerve damage! That is a high percentage. One in three. There is a secondary cosmetic benefit, but I don't think the cosmetic benefit would be worth it for me if I had a healthy and functioning mouth. (I will enjoy the cosmetic perk though.) The only way I can feel remotely comfortable with these odds is because I know that I can use acupuncture to help promote nerve regeneration if necessary, and to help control pain.

Before I can start with braces, I need to have some preliminary work done. I have some decay that needs to be cleaned up, a new temporary bridge replaced where my front teeth were knocked out in junior high, and an impacted tooth extracted. This is going to be a long arduous process. Ugh!