#sarpe gap

[sarpe2011-blog]

Ok...Maybe it is expanding evenly, todays photo montage gives me a bit more hope...But I will keep monitoring, not sure if photos had exact angle on me... Upper photo: day 1, two twists. Bottom photo: day 6, 12 twists.

[sarpe2011-blog]

The Expansion ~ Day Six

I have a quesy gut feeling something is wrong, and I don't want to feel quesy anymore. I fear my expansion is uneven. I say this because to the naked eye it seems like my right tooth is properly sliding off to the right, whereas my left tooth seems to be stable and in the same spot. Everyone had warned me to pay attention if I noticed that my palate wasnt expanding evenly.

I went to have a check-up with my surgeon this morning. I met first with her assistant, a young man in residency whom I like very much, and told him my suspicions. I had juxtapozed a photo of my toothy-smile from day 1 of expansion with a photo of my toothy-smile from yesterday, day 5. It seemed to me that my left tooth was in the same position as day 1.

I re-explained this to my surgeon when she entered the office, she said that was very clever of me. She illuminated various post-sarpe xrays and pointed out to me how my lower jaw is tilted, and that this probably makes the gap look asymmetrical. Shocking: basically one side of my face is 1cm longer than the other. I feel like everything is wrong in my structure now, and she said they could take care of this also with surgery, but I can't really think about it. She also said that its unlikely that I'm not expanding evenly because she had felt my broken upper jaw while I was under anesthesia and that both sides seemed to have the same mobility. That was good to hear, but then I also heard her tell her assistant that the break line in the xray was not as visible on the left side as it was on the right side. That made my ears perk up even more, because my sister had also noticed that (she's a doctor btw).

My surgeon left the office, I felt a little more optimistic about my expansion since everone else did, and her assistants showed me how to twist the expander myself, which I learned finally today. Thank god for my sister, I can finally relieve her of the act. I went home soon after and looked at my smile in the mirror, my gap is wider, yes, but I still think my left tooth is in the same hang out spot. I think that the last two twists have also pulled more gum off of the left tooth, revealing more of it. I'm not sure this is a good thing. You can even see it in this photo, from a distance: