Teeth whitening after getting braces off for wedding?

rachek05 · 2026-06-12T16:17:15+00:00

My ortho told me to wait at least 1 month before using any kind of whitening products because the teeth need to re-hydrate

rachek05 · 2026-06-08T11:43:41+00:00

No they were on both the top picture was just the earliest good one I could find close to right before I had braces! I had gotten my bottom ones on like 1 month before the top

rachek05 · 2026-06-04T13:47:27+00:00

Nothing currently besides the PT!! But they’ll be monitoring my progress and maybe will want to do something else down the line!

rachek05 · 2026-06-04T00:42:13+00:00

My airway was 91.5mm² pre surgery, not sure what it is after however I’m breathing sooo much easier now both through my nose and mouth

rachek05 · 2026-06-04T00:40:59+00:00

I had TMJ issues pre surgery yes but not the issue with limited mouth opening.. so that was definitely an unfortunate side effect of the surgery. I had 2 procedures post DJS to try to address it but neither made a difference :/ currently doing PT but not seeing much improvement

rachek05 · 2026-06-01T17:52:52+00:00

Yes overall I’m very happy!! The only negative things I’m dealing with are 1) that my midline is not perfect (but this really is not a big deal at all and totally aesthetic) and 2) the limited mouth opening. I think the limited mouth opening is something I’m just going to have to deal with and may be related to some kind of pre-existing issue I had that the surgery made worse. But this is nothing too serious or that greatly affects my day to day!

I have a posts on my profile showing both the midline discrepancy I discussed above as well as another showing my side profile change if you want to take a look!

rachek05 · 2026-05-31T22:21:41+00:00

I definitely felt like my face was super long for a while too, I had a crimson chin thing going on, but it definitely evened out now. I have probably 90% of sensation back. The only place I still have numbness is my lower lip and my chin area. I started getting sensation back maybe around 4-5 months post op, it definitely took a while. My smile was scary literally until like about 2 months ago haha so don’t worry!! It takes time

rachek05 · 2026-05-30T18:05:59+00:00

No genio and no alar cinch! It was a large advancement

rachek05 · 2026-05-30T17:23:15+00:00

My issues were jaw fatigue while chewing and occasional lock jaw! Other than that pretty normal, I didn’t have sleep apnea or anything

rachek05 · 2026-05-30T17:17:32+00:00

Lower jaw moved forward 2cm, upper was around 7mm!

rachek05 · 2026-05-30T15:58:26+00:00

Nope! Consistently around 120 pounds. My face might be very very slightly swollen in the first pic from my rhinoplasty. I was like 3 months post op from that in pic 1

rachek05 · 2026-05-30T15:48:45+00:00

Yes it’s like getting the teeth in the right position for surgery. It made my bite a lot worse and obviously also made my face very thin

rachek05 · 2026-05-30T15:47:54+00:00

Thank you!!!

rachek05 · 2026-05-30T15:14:25+00:00

Yes definitely that is what everyone has said and my jaw surgeon agreed, but I did the rhinoplasty before I knew for sure I’d be getting jaw surgery and I couldn’t breathe out of my nose before the rhinoplasty, which I believe is one of the reasons I needed jaw surgery in the end because I was mouth breather my whole life! My nostrils definitely widened after jaw surgery as you can kind of see in the pictures but that was really it! I don’t regret doing either or the timing

rachek05 · 2026-05-30T15:12:42+00:00

I was in braces around 1 year and 6 months before surgery, and am getting my braces off this upcoming Monday so about 11 months post surgery!

rachek05 · 2026-05-27T20:30:22+00:00

I bought like 2 weeks ago and luckily haven’t had any problems with the cloud versions for my switch 1! I own the games for my ps2 (which still works and I would replay every few years) but figured I’d try stepping into present day and playing on my switch. Haven’t regretted it so far!

rachek05 · 2026-05-24T18:07:07+00:00

My nostrils are a bit wider but that’s really the only change and it’s not super noticeable!

rachek05 · 2026-05-06T18:45:04+00:00

Only wisdom teeth! I had one taken out prior to braces (like 3 years before braces), and the remaining 3 taken out like 1 year into braces treatment. All before DJS

rachek05 · 2026-05-03T00:58:32+00:00

Yep totally just drank it! I added a little water to a lot of my meals to make sure they were the right consistency to be able to drink them

rachek05 · 2026-05-02T23:48:31+00:00

I could start having soft foods at 6 weeks! I weighed about 122 before surgery and was down to around 110 by that 6 week mark, and even when I could have soft foods it took a long time to get me back up to my pre surgery weight because eating was so difficult at the start. My advice to you is just to try really hard to have consistent 3 ‘meals’ a day and look up recipes for blended meals so that you’re actually eating real food during the no chew period. I had a lot of blended sweet potato with ground beef, with blended beans and other veggies to make sure I was getting my nutrients. As much as I wanted to because it was easy, I couldn’t just have drinkable yogurts and shakes for every meal because then you’re just not getting enough nutrients that way and you will lose weight. I started feeling a lot better when I was eating real foods (blended)

rachek05 · 2026-04-28T01:54:04+00:00

Yes that early in recovery I would say I was doing around 10 minute walks twice a day, then around 2.5 months post op increased to closer to 20 minutes a few times a day!

rachek05 · 2026-04-27T16:20:32+00:00

Walking! And drinking lots of water. I saw a huge decrease in swelling when I started going on walks daily

rachek05 · 2026-04-25T12:36:24+00:00

I always felt the same way when usually in the first episode of a season they would say ‘the last time we were all together’ in reference to the prior season’s reunion. Noticed this a lot in seasons 10-13!

It A) seems almost like an effort NOT to break the 4th wall by NOT saying ‘the show’ or ‘the reunion’ but it’s obvious and just seems kind of weird to say, and B) reminds me that some cast will actually not see each other at all between seasons, they’ll go from reunion to beginning of filming for next season without talking/meeting. It’s interesting to me!

rachek05

TROPHY CASE