Having to do Surgery...

**HAhmed** · 08-23-2012

Been visiting this forum for a while, but decided to make this post as I don't feel too great at the moment.

I'm 18 from England and currently don't know what to do really. Firstly I may have to have some form of jaw surgery in order to fix my teeth/biting problems as I developed an underbite (lower jaw sticks out infront of top when I bite) (no one else in family has one nor was I born with it, but when I was 11/12 I didn't really give much attention to my teeth so I didn't wear an appliance I was given properly to fix my top set of teeth which were crooked) . As a result, as years went on by around 15/16 I think it caused my whole jaw to mess up as my biting was not right. Now I visited the dentist and they say the only solution is jaw surgery. Now if I do go ahead with it, it will likely take 4-5 years, a year of waiting, a year of braces, surgery, braces . But I've been told that it will likely have significant change on my appearance , my nose/cheeks may change if they move my top jaw forward, or I may lose some feeling in my lower lip/chin if they move my lower one back and cut a nerve and then putting steel plates in my mouth to let the jaw heal.

I actually don't want to do the surgery as I feel terrified of it, but part of me does want to have good teeth and I've been told if I don't get it corrected it'll cause further damage to me down the line as its not healthy for the jaw as it wears down. And already I can feel my jaw making crackling sounds when I eat normal food, and opening my mouth wide, and it feels sort of stiff when I sit down. Not too sure about whether to go through with it as I may end up worse off / different.

Plus I don't really have a set path to follow now that I've finished my school studies, its come down to applying to universities but I may not get accepted so it'll likely be another year out or doing some form of job instead and then trying to reapply next year. I don't really know now, before everything was set out as to what I had to do in school, but now school is over :/ . I also don't really have too many friends to talk to as they've all gone to university this year and are busy with their own lives so I hardly talk to manyone now. I also dont have siblings to talk to (my 2 older sisters have moved out) Just feel like it wont turn out better in the future really.