geri

Yesterday was the day when I had to say goodby to my bridges. But before the procedure I decided to make an experiment. Since a few days I felt that the pain caused by my braces has almost disappeared, so I decided to try to eat something that need to chew a bit more hardly. For my experiment I choosen a turkish restaurant close to my ortho's office, and ordered a gyros in pita. For my surprise I had almost no difficulty to eat! I was so happy! After my meal I went to the lavatory to brush my teeth. The picture I saw in the mirror was so funny that I regretted not to have a camera with me. I already got familiar with fact that the eatings got used to stick under the archwire but after eating the gyros my braces looked like a vegetable plantation after a hurricane .

The removal of my two bridges went relitively quickly. My ortho decided to install on me a device she called TPA. As she explained to me this will make my upper arch a bit widther, which is necessary because in my treatment she will move my lower jaw a bit forward and my upper a bit backward to make my overbite disappear, and for the good final result it's important to have to have the upper and lower arches have the same width in their new positions - or at least I understood that way her explanation. For those who don't know what a TPA is, I attach an image of my upper arch. I would lie if I would say that I'm ok with my new appliance. This device goes on the roof of my mouth, and makes the space in my mouth significantly less. This means, that it causes problems in eating and unfortunatelly in speaking as well: I get a quite noticeable lisp, and it's extremely awkward that I speak like a tongued-tied. My ortho tried to reassure me that the lisp is only temporary, and I will get accustom to my TPA and it won't bother me in speaking. I hope that she's right. Almost one day has passed since I have my new device but my lisp seems to be even worse.

A question for those who has or had to wear expander, or has information about it: how many times / days does or did it take you to get accustomed to your expander, and the device don't disturbe you in speaking?