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A week ago I had my wonky tooth removed. Yesterday I got a powerchain across my bottom teeth.
First two compare today and January; 2nd two compare today and a month ago.
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Extraction number 2 now complete. I'll post new photos after my ortho visit next week. Ouch.

My bottom incisors are ducking for cover! Thank goodness, seeing as how they were poking their little heads so far up. The ortho says that wonky one officially has to go. I have finally resigned myself to it and am ready to get the little sucker out of there so my smile will look right!

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The pics are from Aug 8 (2 months), Jan 21 (6 months) , Feb 24 (7 months), March 28 (8 months) ...

Today I went in for the 6 month visit. About 2 months ago I had the upper left first premolar removed. Since then we have been in a bit of limbo. I guess at 3 months I got brackets on the lower arch except for the incisors. That was to expand the arch a little, I think. Today I got bands on the second molars all around as well as brackets on the lower incisors, except for the one that is way wonky. I also got a "mild" powerchain to tug on the canine in front of my premolar used to live. ...

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Here's comparing baseline to today...sorry for the blurry photo...taken with cell phone but you can see the difference pretty clearly, I think. I'm about 1.5 months in. Very exciting! My upper arch is starting to look like...well, an arch!

So at my one-month visit the ortho pulled out the plaster model he got back from the lab showing what my teeth will hopefully look like when we're done. Wow. Imagine me, with straight teeth!

The ortho wants to pull one of my incisors that tips way back to relieve the crowding on the bottom arch. So I'd have 3 incisors, which I think would look weird. He says it won't be that obvious to others and that it is the most "practical" approach at my age with my teeth. So, I would ...

I guess I'm a little over 3 weeks in. I go in for spacers at end of next week so I can get a band around a premolar crown that they don't want to bond directly to...that's my only tooth with no bracket at the moment.

The whole thing has gone pretty well...after about 10 days I was back to eating just about everything I did before except nuts, popcorn, raw carrots. I had the weirdest sensation when I first got them that every time I chewed it felt like I was pushing the bands on more ...

I seem to be adjusting pretty well. I used a fair amount of wax on the bands and on the couple of brackets with hooks, but I haven't used any on those today and all seems okay. Front teeth are sore but tolerable.

I'm getting used to eating again. I found grapes have been great...I need to use just enough force to get them to burst open that I'm working the jaw but not enough to cause pain.

The only thing I didn't expect was that my tongue was going to have some irritation ...

Finally! I've only been waiting 20 years....

All went pretty well. I did lose a couple of spacers and that made the banding more difficult for a couple of teeth...hurt like heck, actually. But they are feeling better now. I got bands on top and bottom but he only did brackets and wire on the top for now.

About to try to eat something for the first time...should be fun!

Just got the separators. They didn't hurt as bad as I thought they would. They put them in, then the tech realized the doc wanted another xray, so she had to take them out, xray, and insert all over again! Oh well.

All in all it was fine. I don't have the throbbing pain I was expecting based on others' reports.

Go in for the brackets and wires in 5 days!

Yesterday I had an appointment with my dentist to get new crowns. The ones I have on now are plastic temporaries that were placed a couple months ago. The orthodontist wanted to not have the plastic ones and wrote the dentist a letter saying replace them with metal ones for the duration of braces then do the final restorations.

But, when I went in yesterday, the dentist said he had talked to my ortho and we're staying with the plastic ones. He used a permanent cement rather than the ...

Okay, so here's my story. It will probably sound familiar, actually, from what I've read on this forum.

I have 10mm overjet, complete overbite, class I on the right side but class II on the left side, and pretty significant crowding, especially on the bottom. My family couldn't afford braces and I did try to go it on my own in college, but was told that I would need jaw surgery so I didn't pursue it any further.

I am now 42 and can't stand it anymore. I never smile ...