Medical Team

Having jaw surgery (orthognathic) is a process in terms of time, knowledge, money, and perhaps most of all, ensuring that you have selected the right medical professionals to take care of everything throughout the entire journey. Double Jaw surgery is major surgery and you want to be assured that you are in the right hands!

It is not a quick process; some people wear braces for years before actual surgery but for me the process started at the beginning of 2011 with my Orthodontist and the installation of braces! What other word would you use . . .

Surgery was originally scheduled for November 2011 but unfortunately the braces had not moved my teeth sufficiently by that date and so we moved the surgery date to April 2012.  Post-surgery I meet with my Oral Surgeon every week (sometimes twice a week) for six weeks and then I will start meeting with my Orthodontist once again as he continues to ensure that my teeth are aligned and make any corrections as a result of surgery. Hopefully, the braces will be removed towards the end of 2012 so the process will have taken close to 24 months in total for me. 

I genuinely believe that I had the best Orthodontist and Oral Surgeon (and their respective support staff!) that I could have hoped for! Here is a brief introduction to the both of them and no, neither Doctor asked me to write anything about them on my blog, I have just been asked quite a lot about who I use for Orthodontia work and who my Oral Surgeon is! :)

Orthodontist: Dr. Jamey Watson
Dr. Watson is just a great Orthodontist, period. A lot of Orthodontists seem to run their practices with a conveyor belt mentality but Jamey is able to provide personal attention to all of his patients. He spends however much time is needed to explain what is going on, what steps are being taken, what the result will be, etc., and honestly, I have complete faith in what he does.

Not being the typical teenager-age client I was surprised by how many middle-aged adult (am I really middle-aged!?) clients he has but he relates to everyone and is very personable. His assistants (administrative and dental) are great and professional and really, they all make a great team!

He has been my Orthodontist since the beginning of this journey (Feb 2010) and has worked alongside my Oral Surgeon throughout the process and it was clear there was a lot of respect between the two of them for each other. He takes a great interest in the final outcome and honestly, I could not have asked for a better Orthodontist!

Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon: Dr. Gregory W. Egbert
I know I have mentioned it in my blog posts but I really think my surgeon is fantastic! Every time I looked into double jaw surgery and asked for recommendations, Dr. Egbert was the one surgeon that was consistently labeled as the best and I can honestly say I see why people say that; he is super attentive, detail oriented and clearly exceptionally experienced. It is important to not only have complete trust in your surgeon in terms of technical and medical  knowledge but for me, it was also equally important to connect in terms of personality and Dr. Egbert is very personable! :)

He described everything that would happen from the smallest detail about pre-surgery preparation, what would happen during the surgery, and what to expect in terms of post-surgery recovery and time frame. I had so many questions for him about the surgery, recovery, final outcome, etc., but every time I took my list of questions to an appointment, he invariably answered all of them before the end of the meeting when I was planning to ask them! :)

Let's face it (no pun intended), you really want to have trust and faith in your oral surgeon as they are  altering the way you are going to look for the rest of your life! :) At the time of writing this, I am three weeks post-sugery and I already love how everything has turned out!