BlondeAddiction's Braces Addiction:

Hey everyone! Another braces update for you guys (and myself for the sake of documentation)!

I can't say I'm thrilled with today's appointment- I'll tell you why.

Had my Ortho appointment 3 hours ago and thankfully I'm not as sore as I was expecting I would be so that was a PLUS. As soon as I arrived, the assistant (who I adore) got to work on removing my Powerchains before my Ortho came in. Whew, no discomfort. Another plus. He had me do all the usual- "bite down, OK, open, down, turn," etc to check out my bite and was all "WOW!' when he saw how much my Overjet had been reduced since last month. I'm pretty floored too. I asked him about my lower snaggle canine that I was sure needed to be moved considerably- and went ahead and brought to his attention that the other lower canine could stand to move down just a tiny bit. He instantly agreed and got to work poppin those suckers off. Once again, the 1st one- POP! Perfection. The 2nd- gah, took him a few crunches and finally that thing exploded into what seemed like a thousand pieces. I asked my hubby afterwards if he heard it and his response: "Did I HEAR IT !?! I think pieces flew and hit me in the eye!" LOL!! Such an ass he is :p.<3 ANYway! He started grinding and grinding away at the 2nd one removing the glue and I started getting antsy and sensitivity in the tooth. Again, unable to prevent myself from fearing the worst- I was convinced part of my tooth was broken and he was trying to fix it. Again, not the case. Brand new brackets were placed on both my lower Canines and man, I can really tell how discolored my old ones are in comparison. These are crystal clear whereas my old ones, well, they're more tooth-colored now (which in all honesty blend better than brand new ones IMO.) He also asked me about the 2 chips in my lower central Incisor. I explained that yeah, I had chipped it many years ago as a teenager who used her teeth to tear open everything- from paper to soda bottle tops. I mean hey, my teeth were already SO jacked up- I didn't care much at the time. He said he'd be happy to bond them for me when we're done and try and make them as perfect as possible :) YAY!

All good news I guess. Now for some of the things I was kinda bummed about (ok, well- bittersweet about I guess):

Since my last appointment we re-positioned my upper Canines, we had to backtrack into my original wire. You guys know the one, the round, flexible, thin one. This time, well- you guessed it- we had to backtrack AgAiN to the small round on the bottom to compensate for the new brackets. Not a huge deal but I felt like had I said something about it last month we could have done it all at the same time. Now I'm worried I tacked on another month of treatment but I don't know for sure. On the flip side, It's bittersweet because I've had a huge gap that formed in between my lower central Incisors and it has been there for about 7 months. We've tried twice now to powerchain it shut but to no avail. Only 3 hours after switching to my flexible wire and it's halfway closed. Maybe it hasn't set me back as much as I thought. My uppers are now in line so its BACK to the heavy duty rectangular wire on that one again. Basically we just swapped wires this time. No more powerchains this round. Elastics still 24/7.

Another bittersweet moment was I took my progress pics a few minutes ago (knowing that every time I get a new adjustment I see crazy results in just a few short hours), and I notice my midline is off. Like... Off, OFF. Bah. It's been pretty spot on for many months and it's a real big deal to me that it stays- but alas- it's off by a few MM's. I just sat there staring at the pic goin "sonofa..." LOL. I'm guessing the whole lower gap closure I talked about above had something to do with it shifting. Not a big deal now I know, but yeah- bummed for the time being. Ahem- "bittersweet". ;) I then took my pic from below looking up at my Overjet like I always do. It's 'one small step' on one side, 'one giant leap' on the other. What the heck?! It TOO has been spot-on (nearly) for months! FML lol! Good news is, the 'one giant leap' side is the side with my high snaggle canine. I'm HOPING it has something to do with that; and that it's preventing my teeth from touching properly, thus resulting in an uneven bite. Again, keyword: Hoping. I'll know in a few hours once my snaggle aligns and update here. I realize this happens often but ya gotta admit how frustrating it is when one side doesn't cooperate with the other. Again, I feel as though I was set back some, but I may just be over-thinking it. My Ortho didn't seem concerned, and I shouldn't be a baby- I just want good news and great news every single time so I can get these babies OFF by November. I'm due off in Sept- but I set Nov as my own personal goal because I fly home for the Holidays to see my family. Many of them don't even know I have gotten braces so I'd love to show up with a magic smile.

All in all, that's where I'm at. Sorry for the super long post. I'll update with pics tonight if anything cool happens! LOL!!

xoxo Krissy

Here is some photos of the things mentioned above so I can track the timeline: my gap closure progress in 3 hours, my snaggle tooth with it's new bracket and flex wire, and my off-midline.

Oh and yes, you'll see I have my lip ring back. Let's just say that's a whole 'nother blog! LOL!!

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