Sunday, November 29, 2015

Insurance Companies Rant

After about 3 phone calls I started to realize it may be near impossible to find a surgeon that would do a free consultation and staying "in network" knowing that they view this as a cosmetic procedure.

I do not want this surgery based on cosmetic reasons only. I want this surgery because I cannot breathe through my nose and find myself gasping for air and with very little energy throughout the day even after 8 hours of rest. I'm determined to get all of the required tests done to prove just how medically necessary this is or my insanity will drive me to spend the money on it. Even 60k+ that it will probably end up costing unless myofunctional therapy works.

Well, I've still chosen to see at least 3 doctors that are in network and see if they feel insurance will cover it. I'm scared because I do not want to have surgery. I've been trying my best to breathe through my nose and keep my mouth closed but it's led to headaches and extreme jaw pain plus allergies make it that much harder. I'll keep trying though until I can get a specialist to find another answer or cure to this disease. My quality of life needs to improve one way or another. I cannot keep feeling fatigue and depressed to do anything because lack of energy/oxygen.

I trust God has a plan though.

-Living with VME

Sunday, November 8, 2015

First step..the consultations

I've done my research on orthodontists and oral surgeons in south Florida. I have 8 total consults to go to. Because my insurance will cover orthodontics, I need to go to in network orthos.

I don't know whether my insurance will cover the jaw surgery. Although it is cosmetic, there are a number of things that I believe should be necessary for surgery. For instance, I have sleep apnea and I am a chronic mouth breather with obstructed airways making it hard to breathe and I never fully feel rested after a nights sleep. I also have jaw pain occasionally and have to take a pill about once every 2 weeks when it bothers me.

If you found my blog because you are going through this journey too, please let me know whether it was easy to get covered and what your experience was. I'd really like to not become more poor when I desperately would like to solve my brain fog during the day and constant need for 4+ hour naps!

My estimated timeline for this journey is

Consultations in December 2015
Braces on February 2016
Jaw Surgery December 2016
Braces off July 2017

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

My Jaw/Gummy Smile Story

I am a 25 year old female that has had a gummy smile since I was a child. I have been diagnosed with vertical maxillary excess or "long upper jaw." For most of my childhood, I went without any diagnosis and never had braces. My teeth were always "straight" but I was a mouth breather with a gummy smile. At rest, my lips are slightly apart and show teeth. It wasn't until my freshman year of college did I really become self conscious about the gummy smile.


When I was 18 years old in High School 

I then decided to go to an orthodontist for an evaluation. During my first ever orthodontist experience, he noticed my teeth had shown a few gaps. He claimed that he could correct but he could not fix my "lip incompetence" or gummy smile. I decided to go through with a mild form of invisalign to fix 2 spaces. Within 7 months, the gaps closed but I now had a slight overjet and still the gummy smile and now an even harder time closing my mouth.

After doing even more research to fix my gummy smile, I decided to undergo "lip repositioning surgery." I wish this cosmetic dentist would have told me the relapse rate of this surgery. I still had no idea why I really showed so much gums. It wasn't my "high lip" when smiling. It was my jaw. Not knowing that, my smile looked so forced and fake that my teeth barely even showed. Three thousand dollars and 1 year later my lip repositioning surgery relapsed and I was back with the same gummy smile.

 After lip repositioning surgery. 
My new smile, barely showing my teeth.

Next, I started to research botox which would essentially do the same as the lip repositioning surgery (I suggest botox over that surgery any day). Botox works for about a month if I am not fulling smiling and laughing. Still this is not a permanent fix and it's about $60 every 6 months.

More research for 2 years has led me to finally fix my long upper jaw and lip incompetence. I have a narrow palate (I suspect from the invisalign treatment early on) and show a lot of black in my buccal corridors along with severe overcrowding due to shifting teeth on the bottom of my mouth which has made my lower jaw also narrow. First I will widen my upper jaw and fix lower crowding with braces. This will widen my smile to show more teeth and hopefully disguise some of my gumminess when smiling.
My mouth closed..receding chin and lip incompetence

I am going to see 4 orthodontics and 4 oral surgeons to get the best possible opinion for jaw surgery. Next, I am going to train myself through orofacial myofunctional therapy to keep my lips closed at rest and breath through my nose. I am trying now but my tongue barely has enough room to stay at the roof of my mouth with my teeth together; therefore, I keep my teeth apart slightly.

I also hope that this will move both my jaws up slightly, but after reading minimal research, this is not really proven. However, once I can successfully close my lips with proper tongue placement, without having to think about it, I will look into a sliding genioplasty since I have a receding chin when closing my lips and mouth.

I have taken before pictures of my journey along the way and will blog my journey from here on out living with VME, to improve my quality life, and to finally fix the root cause not just the symptom of my long narrow face.