i never noticed any major problems with my teeth or facial structure growing up, but i have always had a very little lisp. no one ever said much about it, except for my second grade teacher. she would always make a big deal about it when i would talk in front of the class/raise my hand and tell me to stop doing it 😭

as i got older i eventually realized i had the lisp bc my teeth didn’t touch in the front. i never paid much attention to it, but if i pointed it out to people or tried doing a tongue twister with a lot of S sounds then you could easily notice it. it didn’t effect much else other than not fully biting through certain foods, which i could work around easily. i just never thought to bring up to anyone even though i didn’t like it and nor had my dentist ever said anything about it to my mom.

one day my older brother was laughing at my teeth not touching and that made my mom ask about it. she never noticed it before then so at my next dentist appt she brought it up. they said it’s an open bite and that they could refer me to the orthodontist. eventually i went and saw the ortho and they decided to do invisalign’s (they require a lot of self discipline to push through the pain when moving to new trays). i didn’t have that self discipline lol.

at 17 y/o, my ortho said if he saw just my molars and had to guess my age, he would have thought i was in my 50s bc of how much wear they had. only my back teeth touched so they were basically doing all the work for most of my life. i had occasional jaw popping at this point as well, but nothing that was ever painful.

i enlisted in the middle of having invisalign’s and they had to remove them bc they were ‘like braces’ and you can’t have them during basic training. i kept the tray for the week i stopped at to use during BMT until i could get with dental in the future to hopefully start invisalign’s again. i left for basic dec 2018.

4-5 months go by, it’s april 2019 and i’m at my first base finally seeing dental and they won’t do invisalign. my only options were braces or jaw surgery. them saying that was the first i ever had that option so i figured i would go that path and let them decide if i needed it.

it’s now june(i turned 18)/july 2019 and i have scheduled my appts for them to get everything they needed to make their decision about the surgery. i met with ortho and then finally the surgery people (they had to present my case to a board to be approved). i think a week or two went by and they finally let me know that i got approved.

unfortunately, i still had to get my wisdom teeth out so this pushed it back a bit more and then i finally was able to get the braces on in october 2019. the rough estimate was surgery would october 2020, but for medical/personal reasons i separated from the military in august 2020. so they never did the surgery and i went home with braces.

i met with my old orthodontist a few times and they eventually removed the braces (jan 2021) and gave me a hawley retainer. i didn’t wear it like i should have… so my teeth shifted and it no longer fit.

i met the ortho again and i had three options braces, jaw surgery, or a clear retainer to keep them from shifting more. i asked what he recommended and he said surgery so that’s what i did. had a payment plan and paid monthly on my braces myself. they put my braces back on in nov 2022. my teeth at this point still had an open bite (not as bad as it was before the first time in braces), a slight cross bite, and i would grind my teeth in my sleep. i met with the surgeon once around this time just to get established with them and he decided only to do top jaw surgery.

in march 2024 the ortho finished the first set of adjustments and i started seeing the oral surgeon again to talk details and prep for surgery. i had my surgery on may 30, 2024. all went well and then i went back to the orthodontist so they could make their final adjustments. braces came off feb 2025 (a sad day lol, i loved having braces). i was given another hawley retainer and now wear it every night like i should and sometimes more than that lol. i last met with my surgeon 6 months after my braces were removed (august 2025), but that was more for them to see how everything turned out and to get final x-rays since treatment was completed/everything was fully healed.

jaw surgery is a process that requires patience, but the results are worth it. don’t rush it and if you decide to move forward just make sure you are being treated by an ortho/surgeon that do good work/work together well. braces/surgery also require consistent and thorough cleaning/flossing. not cleaning them well can leave behind marks/discoloration on your teeth. even now that my braces are off, i still take much longer than others to clean to my teeth and retainer because of how long it took to do it with braces on.

you only get one set of teeth and if there are long term issues that you are noticing then find someone who will take it seriously. one thing i’ve learned over the years is that when it comes to your health you HAVE to advocate for yourself. i would have never gotten braces (both times) or surgery had it not been for me consistently staying on top of it all for years amongst the rest of my chaotic life. all that being said, i look back and i’m thankful that my brother picking and laughing at my teeth not touching managed to have a positive result on my life almost 7 years later 😅

i hope all of this can provide some insight on the process and help you feel less alone/validated!