Paige Dobson, an 18-year-old teen, went 2 life-changing surgeries so she can get rid of her “resting bitch face”, which got her bullied all the time.
Dobson had her top and bottom jaws were broken in order to get her overbite fixed by surgeons.
The 18-year-old also had a free nose job after the surgeries.
Dobson said she was unable to open her mouth for 2 weeks after the surgery.
Talking about the pain, she said everything was worth the pain.
The teen said she sued to hide her face away from other people, but now everything has changed.
Dobson said she can’t stop smiling now and called the operations as the best thing that she’s ever done and urges other people in her situation to follow her footsteps.
Dobson, who is from Netheravon, Wiltshire, faced cruel comments about her overbite throughout her childhood days.
The teen said she got bullied when she was 14.
She recalled, “There was a group of people who would always make comments, laugh and impersonate how I would look if I was laughing, it was really cruel. The main girl in this group got her boyfriend to follow me home from school and shout abuse at me for six months – it was so bad we had to get the police involved.”
The bullying she received forced her to stop smiling.
Dobson explained, “Before my surgery I was so self-conscious and always avoided smiling. I hated having pictures taken and always covered half my face with my hand.”
She added, “Whenever I closed my mouth it would crease up and if I laughed too much I’d be really gummy, it held me back from enjoying myself and being able to smile nicely in photos. The orthodontist said braces wouldn’t do anything because my overbite was so bad.”
She said her mother used to ask “Paige why do you have a resting bitch face?” when they would look at her pictures.
Dobson said she knew her mother was kidding around, but she knew that her mouth looked miserable.
For a change, Dobson decided to take drastic action to change her bite.
The 18-year-old had braces for 2 years and 6 months before she went through the bimaxillary osteotomy at the Salisbury District Hospital in Odstock, Wiltshire.
Doctors broke the top and bottom jawbones of Paige before fixing her mouth in place in a new position.
They also carried out a procedure to re-align the nose of Paige so it can be right with her fixed jaw.
The entire recovery process of the surgeries took 2 weeks and a lot of pain, but the teen says everything was worth it.
She explained, “I had to deal with a lot of bleeding and my lips were left red and raw from where they’d been pulled about when they operated on my jaw. I couldn’t open my mouth at all for a fortnight and didn’t look in the mirror for a week because I knew I’d be horrified – as I could feel the swelling was past my ears.”
She added, “When I finally looked at myself I remember laughing as I had this puffer fish face. The pain was awful, I had a mask that ran cool water through a tube on my face but every time I would take it off I was crying in pain… I remember FaceTiming my mum afterwards and she cried and said I looked amazing, I haven’t stopped smiling since.”
She continued, “It’s the first year of me being the new me. I probably look really vain on my social media but I couldn’t care less. It’s given me a real confidence boost especially with my singing, it’s changed my self-confidence completely and I now happily strut around the stage. It’s made me love myself more…”
She also had some words for people that are stuck in a situation similar to hers.
Dobson said anyone who is in a situation like these should go through an operation.
She said, “To anyone in a similar situation thinking of having the op – just do it. It’s hard to go through that op both physically and mentally, there were up and down days. [But] it was 100% worth it, it’s the best thing I’ve ever agreed to do. Now my resting bitch face has gone for good.”