catgyrl

Aloha all!!

Wow, what a great appointment I had this morning! My ortho decided to be a “Chatty Cathy” (pun intended) today, and was cracking jokes right and left. Great day for questions! :lol: It's like he was in my head all this time, and answered all the questions I wanted to ask before I could even ask them. I honestly have nothing more to ask him about.

Good thing #1: He noticed that my upper central incisors overlapped (which I’ve noticed forever, but never had the nerve to ask him about it). So, he decided to do some IPR (FINALLY!!) between them so we could bring them together. He said he’s noticed them all along, but wanted to wait to see if they’d move on their own. IPR didn’t hurt at all, but it smelled horrible! Same odor as when he scraped off the bonding when I got my brackets changed out. He also did IPR between the centrals and laterals. He told me my front teeth were “really big” and the laterals were “small”, so he wanted to try to even them out as much as possible. I told him “I’ve seen WAAAAAY bigger teeth than mine, dude!” He said that he was only doing the minimum right now, and he could always do more shaping around the edges later when we take them off.

Good Thing #2: I also got a reprieve from my zigzag elastics (YAY!) and am now back to Class II (which feel like absolutely nothing, compared to the others). They're Sea Lions, in case anyone wants to know which type of elastics animal I have. I asked if he was hoping to pull my "buckeys" a bit farther back than they are now, or will I have to be content with a small overjet in the end, and he said that he wanted to pull them back more, and that's why he changed me back to the Class II configuration.

He also looked at the lowers, and I asked him, “Are those pretty much done, except for shaping?” and he said, “Yep.” I told him the arch looked a little “off” to me, but maybe it was an optical illusion because of the misshapen edges. After I got all hooked back up with my chains and wires, he looked at the lowers again, and decided to do a little shaping now, rather than next time, and that he’d keep an eye on them to see how they progress. Hopefully he won't have to move any of the brackets or crimp the wire. They do look quite a bit better after the shaping, but I know they will never look perfect, and I'm fine with that.

Here’s a pic of my “Lauren Hutton” space:


I've come to the conclusion that I naturally have a bit of a crooked, "smirky" smile, so that's why it looks the way it does. I've tried pulling my lip down on the right side, but it's too awkard and takes too much concentration. LOL!

Re: Black triangles – he did mention that I do have some, and that he’d try his best to get rid of them, but because of the shape of some of my teeth, he might not be able to get rid of all of them. Hey, as long as I don’t have one smack-dab in the middle of my two front teeth, I’m fine..

Good Thing #3: Then I popped the BIG QUESTION: I asked him if I should go in next month for my now-due semiannual cleaning, or if I could wait until the braces came off. He said if the braces were coming off in 2 months, he would tell me to wait on the cleaning, but it may be 3 or 4 more months, so he encouraged me to go ahead with the cleaning. I just said, “Okay,” but in reality, I’m going to wait until my debracing to get the cleaning. I’m sure if I call my dentist’s office and relay the information, they will be fine with me waiting. Heck, I’ve completely missed 6-month cleanings in the past, so this is nothing…

3-4 MONTHS MORE!!!! Soooo stoked… :party: