The Stupendous Braces Blog

I had an appointment Oct. 19th and the ortho said that he wants to talk about retainer options at my next appointment because the braces will come off soon! Then he asked me about a small gap that had opened up between my two front teeth. When I first had braces those two front teeth overlapped slightly, but after my teeth became straight the gap popped up. My ortho asked me if I wanted to close the gap and said no at first, but it was only because I was scared that it would prolong my treatment. (I also didn't think of it as a gap because it did not go all the way down.) When his assistant took off my wire she showed me what my teeth would look like and since the gap had increased slightly decided to have my teeth filed down.

The filing sucked. It didn't hurt, but it was scary. I just knew that he was going to hit a nerve and I would be brain dead by the end of my appointment. Fortunately I am still here to tell the tale; the results were well worth it, but it was still scary. He had to take this tool and manually file down my teeth. There he was, sitting at my head filing away. I had bits of my teeth dropping on my tongue and the crush, crush, crush noise going off in my ears. Don't forget the heat from the friction that was thrown in as a bonus. I had to tell myself that I would not have made it if this happened in the first few months that I had braces. (I make everything relative to the pain/discomfort of those first few months to keep me sane.)I was just thrilled when he finally switched to the electric drill because the manual one sucked. Then the part that no one tells you IT WILL HURT!

Now the pain doesn't last, isn't as bad as spacers, isn't as bad as the first few months of braces, but you will have some pain for a bit. My ortho wanted to check his work so after he filed for a bit he would take his hands and push my teeth together. OUCH. File a bit push together.....OUCH. File a bit, push together....OUCH. Then when he was happy with the results he tied my teeth together with a metal ligature. Its basically a heavy duty powerchain. Then he put a powerchain on top of it and finished everything else off. I had a little discomfort for a day (couldn't bite like I have been), but my teeth look so great now. I'm thrilled and can't wait for my next appointment...which will probably be this week since I'm having some unrelated gum pain.

I can't believe I'm already looking at retainers. The assistant told me that I will be receiving an Essix retainer for my upper teeth and a bonded lower retainer for the bottom teeth.

Sorry this post is so grammatically crazy, but I'm sleepy and wanted to type this out before I forgot all of the juicy details.