First Post

This is a new thing for me, besides the usual College course BS that I had to do. But after reading and watching a few blogs about the process that I plan on undertaking was very helpful to me and I hope through this I can help someone else, since this is an interesting case.

Here is my background:

I've had crooked teeth all my life and until now my family and I haven't had the means to help fix them, which is fine you can live without straight perfect teeth. Anyway... I just started this process now because my financial situation is a little more stable and I felt that right now in my Military journey it would probably be the best time. Oh and my interesting case I was talking about...I'm an active flyer (I ride in them, I don't pilot them unfortunately lol) in the military. Some think that it would be super easy to get the military to pay for everything WRONG. For some reason I can't get my braces paid for because "my condition was pre-existing prior to my entry to service" which is total BS, when someone with crappy vision can get Lasik and the military will pay for it....explain to me the logic there...

ANYWAY lol... That's my background and the obstacles that I had/have to face.

Thus far I've managed to get the military to sign off on ALLOWING me to get braces and as of the end of April I've been proudly sporting those lovely things, which has therefore gotten me carded for R rated movies and cigarettes (which I quit). I've had mild pain and discomfort with the braces and the changing of the first wire, which was end of June, but other than that they've been pretty benign.

I'll post the pics I have of me the first day I got braces, since that's really the first time I ever took a picture so close to my mouth...

Things to Come...

My Ortho plan is about 30months. Within the first year-ish or so I will HOPEFULLY under go a mandibular advancement, since my lower jaw is about 6-8mm from where it should be for a perfect bite. Which on my Dad's side is just "the family chin" or no chin in this case. That is my current struggle in this journey. As I have found out the military does OWN EVERY part of you, I mean yah I should have known that, but its just a weird felling I guess...So I talked to my primary dentist on base and they just received a referral letter from my ortho to get the surgery done. Which apparently is news to the mil even though its in the approval letter that I would require surgery. Well it all boils down to if they had known (which they did) that I was a surgical case, the base where I have to have surgery, which oh by the way isn't my home station, would have probably done the whole braces and surgery there. Thanks Uncle Sam for the heads up. I was originally told by about every person on base that active military members never get braces unless its a severe case...uh huh blah blah blah. Long story short I'm currently waiting on my ortho to fill out paper work outlining that my surgery is a separate case that isn't caused from me having braces, but that braces would be required after the surgery on the jaw. That my jaw is a cause of pain and needs to be corrected so on and so forth. This is so that HOPEFULLY the military will at least pay for the surgery, which my dentist says is a better chance than the other way around. So we'll be waiting to get that paperwork back here in the next week and then setting up an appointment with the surgery base and then hopefully hearing if they're going to do the surgery or not.

So yep that's what I have so far, I apologize for the length of post. But I really hope this helps others out there, even if you're not in the mil ask me questions. I'd be happy to lend my very short knowledge of the braces process.

Thanks!