Brace yourself

So, we had our orthodontist appointment.  And I am "happy" to report it was financially better than I thought it would be.  And also oh so not surprised to report that Bossy has severe issues. I mean, seriously.....it would really be nice to have one thing that was easy with this kid.  But, we love him, and we deal with it.  But man, he is definitely a handful (of love!).

Let's get the financial stuff out of the way first.....right now we are looking at a grand total of about $6,000.  So WAY better than I originally thought.  The caveat to this is that right now we are hoping to be able to correct things without surgery.  We won't know until we get further along.  But surgery is a possibility, and then our total number goes out the window.  We will work out a payment plan with them....so that will be that.  I guess we will just adjust our budget again....and go from there.   We are looking into other financial aid, but no one I have talked to has ever heard of help.  I am going to reach out to some of the Autism organization and see if they have any leads.  But most of the aid available is for larger equipment, not orthodontics.

We contemplated getting a few different opinions, but I spoke to our pediatric dentist (who has been our dentist since the kids were a year old), and her feeling was that he is the BEST there is.  She has worked with several other orthodontists in the area, and she had nothing but wonderful things to say about him, his practice, and his staff.

His office was very modern and nice.  Everyone was so nice and patient.  Poor Sassy had to sit in the waiting room for almost 2 hrs.  But she had some books, and the waiting room had several video game consoles.  And a TV.  And bottles of water! 

I liked the doctor, and he has been in practice for 30 yrs.  All he does is orthodontics. After the initial consult and pictures, we went ahead and did impressions and x-rays.  $275.  At least we have our medical account!!!!

Bossy did better than expected with the impressions.  I gave him my phone to use as a stopwatch/timer.  That seemed to help.  He had a hard time with the wax impression and the girl helping with that was soooooo sweet.  I think she felt bad that he was having a hard time.  I bit down on one of the "used" pieces that wasn't going to work (yeah, only a mother will stick a piece of wax that was just in her kid's mouth in her mouth.....).  Eventually, I tried ripping the wax in half and we were able to get what we needed.  Motherhood.....the mother of all ingenuity!

I asked the doctor if he was considered mild.....moderate.  Oh no.....he is quite severe.  Cuz that is just how we roll!  He has a cross bite in the front and in the back (who knew that was even possible!).  He has an underbite.  His upper jaw is too small and narrow.  His lower jaw protrudes.  Of course he looks "perfect" to me.  But alas, his teeth are all crowded and coming in on the sides because there is no room for them.

They are hoping to push his lower jaw back and move his upper jaw forward and expand it with an expander.  If the braces aren't doing enough, then we will have to look at surgery.

We may not start this adventure for a little while though.  His upper molars aren't in enough, so we may have to wait until they descend a little more to give the expander something to clamp to.  But we go back in 2 weeks after the molds are back and will decide then.

It is always an adventure!