BlondeAddiction's Braces Addiction:

I'm stoked!!! SO much stuff has happened today at my appointment and I'm jumping for joy! I just got home and I had to hurry up and write this because there is so much to cover! I'll try to keep it as short as possible. Pfft, who am I kidding, this is ME you're talking about. LOL!

I arrived at my Ortho 10 mins early and they saw me right away. I saw my ortho for just a few mins before we got to start on my 3 month cleaning with my Hygienist. I mentioned I had a malfunctioning bracket which was preventing the wire from being as secure as it could have been. As a result, one of my lower teeth was pretty jacked up and out of alignment. I knew this happened last week because the metal clip on the bracket was kinda just 'hanging' and flapping around when I used my Waterpik. I didn't think it was a big deal considering I knew my appointment was in just 4 days and well, if it set me back 4 days- whats 4 days? LOL. They removed my wires and my Ortho and I talked about progress. He and I noticed my upper central Incisor was still crooked. (You can see it in all of my progress photos and how it hasn't fixed itself by now). He mentioned that he was gonna powerchain me halfway across the top of my teeth to pull that one back over and straighten it out. (YAY)! He also noticed the hella shift in my midline since last month. (The thing I complained about in my last blog). While I had thought it was from my lower gap closing, we now have discovered its a result of 'said' Upper Incisor. East peasy he said. We'll get ya all fixed up.

Got to work on my cleaning which went by exceptionally fast! Even my Hygienist was excited at how much easier it is to clean my teeth now that they're aligned and I'm on a strict cleaning regimen every few months. We polished them and flossed and I was done! They're so pretty! :)

After that the assistant came in and we got to work on my 1 yr Xrays to see how the roots are looking. I took 4 bite wings and my Ortho came back in to see where we were. Everything looked great! I've never seen my teeth so straight in an Xray photo before!! We only found 1 tooth that wasn't straight (the one I always called my lower snaggle canine- I knew that one was always wonky lol). As a result, he decided we were going to powerchain that side to tug it back to where it needs to be. He also had me push my jaw forward a tad to see where we were shooting for as far as overjet was concerned. He had me go forward, then back, then forward again telling me that thats how far I need to move and I'll be done. He says I've spent my whole life with my lower jaw so far back that people start to develop muscle memory in that position and he thinks I'm fighting the elastics because I'm so used to my jaw being in that far back. In a nut shell, I'm gonna have to train my jaw muscles to relax and let my elastics do their thing. I can do that. To help aid in this we switched my elastics! I have had Rhinos for 6 months now, and today I am in Zebras. These are soooo tiny! I'll upload a pic to see the difference but you can literally place these INSIDE the last ones. I'm also wearing 2 on each side -on top of eachother-to make them more taught. To further my pain, lol, I'm doing a Triangle configuration on each side. He's not messing around LOL. But what about my upper Central Incisor? Next month, He says. "Since the Xrays now show this, we need to fix this one tooth first before we do the top since that's minor". Back to the thick wire on my Lowers since we had to back track last month with the bracket re-position. So far, not much discomfort -so whew!

The dreaded question:
"Ok doc, how much longer am I lookin at? I'm at 11 mos now"!

He laughed and goes "I know I know. Ok, I'm gonna tell you 6 months but I'm gonna take them off in 4 so you'll LOVE me! If I tell you 4 months and take them off in 6, you're gonna hate me. So I'm saying 6 months..but it's really 4. " HAHA He's so hilarious! I love my Ortho! :D I'm at 11 mos now, so plus 4 (or 6 pfft) puts me at October (as planned) or December (worst case scenario). I'm hoping for October! No, screw that- I'm hoping for July! haha! Nah, I'm a realist- and going into this being told by other Orthos I would be a 2.5 yr case, I'm stoked with this!!

I still don't see how they can be done in 4 months personally, but I also don't have 11 years experience being an Orthodontist who owns 3 practices, either. Heh.

All in all, everything is great! I even mentioned that one of my upper laterals (again, you can see this is my pics) looks smaller and more stubbly than the other side. I don't like it. He's always so positive and says "Yeah, sometimes people just have more gum tissue than others. It's an easy fix, and you're lucky you only have 1 tooth that will need some gum contouring. I've got patients who I have to do ALL their teeth. I'll knock it when we're done. It's easy and it'll look great when its done"! WOOHOO! Did I mention my Ortho is wonderful! Anything I say I want to change or fix, he's all for it and eager to get it done. I ask a ton of questions, and he's always happy to answer them in full detail. An all-around great day!

Next appointment is July 26th!

Here's some pics of the new Elastics and my little powerchain. You can also see the Upper Central and Lateral that I talked about above, and how my midline is off :)

Oh yeah, and last week I celebrated my 29th Birthday!! :clapping:

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...and just for good measure- here's a candid photo of me laughing after my pinup themed birthday party last week. Don't pay attention to the messed up hair and vodka in my eyes LOL Just thought it was neat to see my teeth in a REAL photo instead of the close-ups where we nitpick. Pretty good I think :)

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