I went to the orthodontist today for a third opinion on a procedure I’m considering.

I have a crossbite where my lower jaw doesn’t line up correctly with my upper jaw.

It’s not visible to other people unless I point it out and it doesn’t affect my eating.

The issue is that the problem only developed recently and it irritates me.

I feel like my mouth just doesn’t close right and I hate it.

My mother had the same problem and it eventually became painful and she had to have surgery to get it fixed.

I’ve gotten conflicting opinions on whether the jaw pain my mother experienced was related to her crossbite or to grinding her teeth, but I feel those two could be connected. I’m certainly grinding my teeth more now that they don’t fit together correctly.

Fixing my crossbite would require surgery. I’ve been to three orthodontists and they all agree that I’ll need to see an oral surgeon in addition to getting braces to fix the problem.

My family is worried about the surgery for practical reasons. The health benefit isn’t clear, its expensive, and no one will notice but me.

Surgery also has possible risks of excessive bleeding when they take out a piece of my jaw so that the upper and lower halves match.

That risk is controlled by doing the surgery in a hospital, but its still on my mind a little bit.

I’m also concerned about whether I will enjoy the surgery once it is finished.

My crossbite developed when I was about eighteen years old. The reason it bothers me is because I remember when it wasn’t like this.

But if my teeth were always like this would I care? Probably not.

And what if after the surgery my teeth don’t fit exactly like the way they used to?

Then I would still feel like my mouth wasn’t closing right and I’d have spent thousands of dollars for nothing.

I’ll keep doing the consultations and planning steps for the procedure for now, but I haven’t made a definite decision on if I’m going through with it or not yet.

Bleh! Why can’t my dental problems just be candy related?

-Mister Ed