Day 11 - Out By Myself and Second Checkup

Day 11 was Tuesday and the day of my second checkup with the orthodontist.

I did also go to the corner shop all by myself today. I texted my husband before I left and set off. I walked slowly and admit that by the time I got there I was feeling a bit squiffy but maybe it was a combination of not having had much food, and feeling anxious about fainting.
Chose my bottle of water and of course there was 2 people in front of me, and the second person took ages because they wanted to pay their papers and pay by card! By this time I'm kinda holding on to the end of the till counter.
But I made it home again, upright in one piece :)

I thought I was going to be seeing my own orthodontist this time but no she was still away so I saw the ortho I saw last week. Not that I minded, because if truth be told, I'd rather have him than my ortho. He's much more gentle whereas my ortho is a bit gung ho in her approach.

Today again I decided to skip the shower and go for the hair wash. My husband took this photo with my hair away from my face so we could get a really good look. It was today that I noticed that I have some crackers of cheekbones appearing! You can't really see it in the photo though :(
Most of the visible swelling has gone down although I still feel chipmunky. Now if only that pesky bruise in the centre of my neck would disappear, I wouldn't look like someone had tried to strangle me.

 My inlaws took me to the ortho again but this time instead of driving me door to door, I asked if we could park the car and I could walk from there to the ortho's door. My mother inlaw asked if I was sure, she didn't want me doing too much, but like I said to her, I wasn't going to get back to work after 4 weeks if I didn't do anything about getting there.
When the time came to see the ortho, I went in, sat on the seat and promptly told him that I had 2 concerns:
1. the pain in my lower teeth/gum/jaw
2. the gap between my top teeth and bottom teeth.

After asking me questions about issue #1, he came to the conclusion that it was probably nerve pain. That quite often patients get sensitive teeth post surgery. He had a look and a prod and couldn't see anything untoward.

I talked about issue #2 at quite some length. He told me that the 'normal' gap size was 2 - 3mm.
When he measured my gap last week it was 3.5mm. But they were really pleased with that, a very small overcorrection but it was needed for my tooth to be restored and for natural movement/settling of teeth and jaws over the months to come.
He took out my moulds of my teeth and showed me what I had went from post surgery to what I was now and that really, it was a big change for me to get my head round.
He measured the gap again and today I was measuring 4mm, so a 0.5mm movement from the week before.

4mm does not equal the Grand Canyon!

He decided to give me a new configuration of elastics, this time running from front to back, top to bottom, from lateral incisors to molars and told me this would help bring that gap back down to 3.5mm.

So basically, I have to get used to normal! That is just so weird and will take some time to get used to!

My bite and my jaw/teeth felt much more secure with this new configuration of elastics. I was happy.

He assured me that I was doing really really well, especially since I was only 11 days post op. He commented again about how I really didn't have much swelling or bruising.

Home for soup, the first time eating in front of someone other than my husband and kids.
The afternoon was spent resting. I'm getting the hang of this now, move one day, rest after.

Supper was sweet and sour sauce from a jar with rice. Yum yum!

Took this photo later on in the day. With my hair still not complying with sitting right, I decided to put it back in a hairband..much better.