The Beginning!

I'm finally getting started on a blog to update on my jaw process! For anyone who's reading this has doesn't really know what the story is here's a little summary....

A few years ago I started getting a lot of ear pain due to my jaw. I didn't think this was anything serious so I waited two years until I went to see a jaw specialist. By that time I had a lot more pain including daily headaches, ear popping/plugging, and difficulty chewing almost any normal food!

I saw the jaw specialist in May 2008. At that time I was barely able to sing without suffering horrible headaches afterwards. I began physio which including accupuncture twice a week with a lot of jaw stretching as well. I went twice a week for about 2 months. After my jaw muscles started to settle a bit I also went for a bone scan, CT scan, and MRI. I continued going to physio once a week for a couple more months then eventually down to every two weeks and at this point I haven't been to physio since the end of November '08. It's been nice to have a break and so far my jaw is doing quite well as far as muscle tension and pain. So that has been a huge blessing.

My tests showed that I have degenerative dics on both sides of my jaw joints. Because of this my upper jaw has been moving forward and causing more of an overbite. This is causing a lot of issues with my jaw function and when it all comes down to it, if I don't have something done to fix this problem now the prediction is I could lose the ability to use my jaw 'normally' in the future.

So this is the treatment plan for the next couple years of my life!

1) Meet with my oral surgeon - which I'm doing on February 24th! (moved up from June '09, such a huge blessing!)
2) Get my wisdom teeth out
3) Braces on (for approx 8 months or so...?)
4) With braces on I will have orthognathic surgery (lower jaw surgery)
5) Braces are predicted to be on for 4 -6 months from my surgery.

So, we'll see how this all goes! I'm very eager to get this all started with and done with so I can be normal again! (normal enough..)

I'm going to update this regularly to let you all know what's happening since it's such a long process! Thank you to all of you who are supporting me and praying for me through this process! You don't know how much it means to me!