- Joined
- Apr 29, 2014
- Messages
- 24,157
- Reaction score
- 25,803
I have lived with an overbite for most of my life, copped some teasing about it through school but was never enough to make me want to have braces... largely because;
1. we were a pretty poor family and i didn't want to be a burden
2. i would have affected me playing football, which at the time was the only thing in life that brought me true happiness
3. like most kids the fear of being teased even more so.
So due to all that i just figured i would life with it like i always had, seeing it as a purely cosmetic issue.
However over the last year or so i've experienced jaw pain (TMJ) and a few other issue.
I went to the dentist to get x-ray to check if it was just wisdom teeth. We found that i have completely sideways wisdom teeth on the bottom that require removal along with ones on top that angle into other molars.
This pretty much gave me the referral to the orthodontist and once there they assessed me and it turns out my overbite is excessive 14mm to be exact and this is largely due to the fact that my lower jaw / mandible has never been aligned correctly which is why i get the jaw pain... and the top part of my jaw is to narrow which needs spacing.
So yeah surgery is required to fix that issues along with braces over 18-24 months. To put the jaw issue into perspective the Dr said that without the surgery, braces would only be able to cut the overbite in half to 7mm at the very best.
Cost for the ortho / braces treatment is $9,200 (3,600 the days braces are applied and 200 bucks a month there after until paid off)
Cost for stage 1 surgery which i believe includes 4 wisdom teeth removal and mandible procedure is $5,530
The surgeon said he would do the procedure in john hunter for me as i don't have private health, not sure if there will be some surprise expenses along the way though.
Has anyone gone through this or something similar? or do you have family or friends that have had to deal this issue and could explain said experience.
If you got this far thanks for reading. Im not one for usually sharing stuff like this, tend to kept shit bottled inside and try deal with it in my own weird way (not healthy i know) but yeah i guess im just scared about the surgery (especially post) and the financial side of things.
1. we were a pretty poor family and i didn't want to be a burden
2. i would have affected me playing football, which at the time was the only thing in life that brought me true happiness
3. like most kids the fear of being teased even more so.
So due to all that i just figured i would life with it like i always had, seeing it as a purely cosmetic issue.
However over the last year or so i've experienced jaw pain (TMJ) and a few other issue.
I went to the dentist to get x-ray to check if it was just wisdom teeth. We found that i have completely sideways wisdom teeth on the bottom that require removal along with ones on top that angle into other molars.
This pretty much gave me the referral to the orthodontist and once there they assessed me and it turns out my overbite is excessive 14mm to be exact and this is largely due to the fact that my lower jaw / mandible has never been aligned correctly which is why i get the jaw pain... and the top part of my jaw is to narrow which needs spacing.
So yeah surgery is required to fix that issues along with braces over 18-24 months. To put the jaw issue into perspective the Dr said that without the surgery, braces would only be able to cut the overbite in half to 7mm at the very best.
Cost for the ortho / braces treatment is $9,200 (3,600 the days braces are applied and 200 bucks a month there after until paid off)
Cost for stage 1 surgery which i believe includes 4 wisdom teeth removal and mandible procedure is $5,530
The surgeon said he would do the procedure in john hunter for me as i don't have private health, not sure if there will be some surprise expenses along the way though.
Has anyone gone through this or something similar? or do you have family or friends that have had to deal this issue and could explain said experience.
If you got this far thanks for reading. Im not one for usually sharing stuff like this, tend to kept shit bottled inside and try deal with it in my own weird way (not healthy i know) but yeah i guess im just scared about the surgery (especially post) and the financial side of things.
Last edited: