Hello dear readers,
I thought it would be nice to write down story like information too, as many others do too in this forum.
I will add alot of information by time to this thread. I begin with the past, the reason for this 2nd journey, the Bday and will the continue with each adjustment and maybe other appliances I will still get, like the expander and update it as soon as I get something interesting to tell or show.
The past:
I first time went to an orthodontist quite early. I don't remember my exact age, but I think 7 or 8. Some years later, I think with 9, I got 2 small loose braces without a full bow, just 4 small metal hooks. 2 Years later I have got a Bionator, which did alot of major work, it expanded both jaws and reformed several wrong aligns. After that I wore 2 normal Activators for top and bottom for a year, followed by the Essix retainers which I wore just at night and which got damaged after a year and I threw them away. They got holes in it, because of biting while sleeping.
Those braces did a good (not perfect) job that time, but later on I already realized it would have been much faster and less uncomfortable with fixed braces, and my ortho said she didn't do that, because everyone must prefer loose braces.. I didn't agree with her even when I was so young, but didn't say anything. My smaller sister got fixed braces then when I was done, at the same ortho and was done in 1/3 of the time of me (same faults as me)
Around 5 years later I realized the first time that my bite and my teeth aren't perfect anymore. I even got some crowded, rotated and twisted teeth again. Like the expansion went backwards slowly, like a compression. But I didn't saw any possibilities to let it done, I was still in school that time, earned to little money, and it was already hard to pay my small apartment, so I didn't even thought about a 2nd treatment that years.
By the years it then got worse unfortionately. Sometimes I even begun to have pain when biting, because I needed more power to get my molars bite properly together. Often my jaws hurt, especially after eating or sleeping. After a while it only was possible to bite with one side of my molars, not both anymore and some more minor rotation appeared to other teeth. It is just a matter of time until it gets worse and worse, which I realized then and decided I have to let it done by an ortho again. That was around 2-3 years ago. So I started to gather information, read in Forums, experiences from other adults, and more important the costs, because it seemed more or less impossible for me to safe so much money. But Where there's a will, there's a way. This always already was my phrase in my life, so I did Jobs and stuff to safe the money necessary for a treatment. Finally this Summer I knew I can start a treatment now and pay it =)
Prearrangement to 2nd Treatment:
While some years back, getting braced again was just a slight idea without a serious wish to really start a treatment, this year I started to bother more and more about my teeth and bite. At the beginning of this year I changed my dentist, because my earlier one was always to fast, not answering questions and not very careful thorough with my teeth. The new one doesn’t have the latest technical equipment, but takes much more time for me and works a bit more thoroughly. After getting fixed 2 small caries at the sides of my molars I asked for a professional dentist cleaning and made an appointment. The result was quite impressive. Absolutely zero tartar was detected, and just some slightly yellow deposits of smoking cigarettes which was removed by the cleaning pistol (water/salt beam shot on teeth) Somehow that day I must have thought about bleaching my teeth and somehow went to fixing my bite first and after checking my teeth in the mirror in detail, I realized I also have several crowd teeth too. The 12 and 22 teeth even begins to move in front of 11 and 21, which is the same teeth problem as my mom has, just she never fixed it and its nearly covering 11 and 21. I didn’t want it to come that way so I made an appointment with an orthodontic very close to my house. The next best sort of
Around 4 weeks later I went to the office.It was a very strange feeling to be in an orthodontic office again after 10 years. There were some very young child’s with their parents and I had to fill out a patient paper with some questions. After 10 minutes of waiting I entered the room and the Doc asked me to sit down on the examination chair and then he asked what is the problem. I didn’t really knew what to say in detail, so I said I want him to check my bite and teeth alignment for any problems. So he did, he wrote down several things and explained me some minor problems. My main concern, my bite problem, he said about that he would not like to fix it, because that would mean a lot of effort and it is not worth the result, because my bite is still quite good, he claimed. I didn’t want to disagree immediately, so I asked for possibilities to fix the crowd teeth at least. He said to fix the 22 and 12, it would need either 1 year of Invisalign or 6 month in fixed braces from 13 to 23, followed by fix retainer. That kind of shocked me, because it didn’t include all the other rotated teeth. I paid him the 10 Euro and said I will think about it at home and maybe call him later. I never did.
I was quite disappointed at home, and rechecked my teeth in the mirror for a while and decided to make another appointment before going to accept the offer to let just 2 teeth fixed. My bite problem just bugged me to much and I was quite sure another ortho would like to treat it without a problem. It was still the same day I made an appointment with another office, led by a women, also very close, just 10 minute by foot. That are the only both offices in my district, if that 2nd meaning would be the same disappointed result and If I would want to ask a 3rd, it would be a 20-30 minute drive in the neighbor district to the next office.
Again 4 weeks of waiting, it was June by now and it was one day before I had my final exams in front of the German trade chamber committee.
That office was a bit different, it was bigger and no one beside me was there. The receptionist was very kind and said her name is Anne. I gave her my insurance card and all information she required for my patient papers, which I completed then. It took us quite a while to find out my old orthodontist address and telephone number, which they required too. Of course I didn’t remember that after 10 years.
Then I finally seated at the doc and she asked me a lot of questions of my earlier treatment and I explained I was several years in Bionator and so on.. She investigated my mouth very well, which took a while and slowly came to a conclusion. I was so happy she first mentioned the bite problem, which doesn’t look so good and probably will get worse every year, until I some day damage my molars, jaws and all other teeth too. She also mentioned all crowded and rotated teeth and explained things very careful and detailed on a plastic mouth model and what an orthodontic treatment can do to me and what not. It was all I wanted, teeth straightening and bite fix. So I told her ok I want to get treated and she explained it would require the use of fixed braces, because this has the best efficiency to fix my problems, and asked if that would be ok for me. I agreed, because I already accepted the idea of fixed braces at home before. She explained the estimated cost of 2000 Euro and Top braces for 2 years and 1000 for lower braces for 1.5 years, if I want. An hour after joining the office I got a date for X-Ray, imprints and photographs and quite happy left the office.
Preparing for the Journey:
That next date was July the 17th and I came to the office with enthusiasm. She did again examine my mouth careful and again wrote down several things to my patient file. After that Anne (the receptionist and helper) did all X-Ray pictures with me and asked several personal questions. At that point this office felt more and more friendly to me. After having done the X-Ray pictures the doc took prints from my jaws, and again carefully explained the process, but I said I also know that procedure, I already was treated 10 years ago, so we smiled and did it. Followed by taking the photographs. Then we went to a white wall and checked the X-Ray pictures together. She immediately saw that my wisdom teeth are doing no good and pushing against my molars. One wisdom tooth even was rotated below the gum by nearly 90°. So it definitely had to be removed. I got some questions to ask my dentist and got the X-Ray picture with me.
2 weeks later I talked to my dentist about the X-Rays and gathered all information needed by my ortho and made another date at the ortho office.
Nearly 4 weeks later at August 25th I brought back the X-Ray pictures and informations to my ortho office, which asked a last final time if I want to start the treatment, which I of course agreed. So they started to work on the treatment plan.
2 weeks later at September 8th I finaly had the appointment to talk about the treatment plan. I went there again full of enthusiasm and sat down, got offered a coffee, but denied. She gave me 6 pages and begun to explain each detail. It was so much information that I had no chance to remember many questions, I was overwhelmed many things. For example did she now said that the treatment cannot be done in less than 3 years, and she explained that on my jaw models. Molar movement is very slow and it is quite a lot to move and rotate. These are all details about the planned treatment I got on that paper: (shortened and translated to english)
Anamnesis / case history
Permanent denture
increased caries sensitivity
18 extremely displaced
Diagnosis:
Cramped fronts top and bottom
Steeply 11 and 21
Rotated 14 and 24
Crossbite 15, 16 and 26
Neutralbite right side
Distalbite 1/2 leftside
Several crowded teeth
Therapy:
Extraction of of 18, 28, 38, 48 (Wisdom teeth)
Expanding of top jaw
Straighten of 11 and 21
Normalizing of 14 and 24 rotation and position
Remove crossbite
Reform bottom jaw front
Reconvert of bite
Epicrisis:
Multiband, expanding, Headgear and retention appliances, 36 months if good reactions and patient care.
Then the plan lists several details about material and payment, total estimated price:
3881 Euro (4970 US$, 6520 AUD, 2615 GBP)
Then I had to sign this treatment plan and some other papers which explain that I have to take a lot of care of my teeth hygiene and that its not guaranteed that the orthodontic treatment is successful. After signing everything and asking everything that came in my mind (I anyway forgot to ask a lot) I got several new appointments. Hygiene lessons. I first thought how boring, I anyway know how to good brush. But at least it was just a matter of time to finally get the treatment started.
September 19th, 26th, October 24th and 30th I then had these hygiene lessons, in which I had to first eat a plaque tab and then brush my teeth as usual with my home brush. I always produced a very good result, except for the inner side of 36-38 (bottom right molars and wisdom), which still remained with a blue color, indicating plaque that has not been brushed away. At the last meeting I finally learned how to handle that too with the right position of my brush in my hands.
November 1st I got 2 of my wisdom teeth extracted. 18 and 38 (right side). 18 is the tooth which is extremely rotated under the gum. Healing was very fast, I didn’t had a much swollen face and with some strong painkiller I felt as always, even had friends to visit me and a lot of fun. Just eating was more or less impossible.
November 5th I got the bandage exchanged, which closed the hole in my bottom jaw.
November 7th I got 8 spacers and it did hurt a bit to open my mouth so wide, because the wisdom extraction was just 6 days past. But fortunately everything has nearly healed totally. My mother that day was very skeptic about me getting braces the next day, because of the wisdom teeth extraction and still 2 of them to go several weeks later, she tried to persuade me to move the appointment to end of year or next year, but I said her no way, I waited so many month now to finally start the treatment and don’t want to wait another 8 weeks for the fixation appointment.
My B-Day! The Journey begins:
It is November the 8th – a date I thought about every single day the last 8 weeks. How will it be? How will it feel and look? I was mixed excited, nervous and even a slightly bit scared. The night before my B-Day I slept only 1 hour because I couldn’t fall asleep so early. (Fixation was planned for 8:30AM and I mostly work evening so its not my time) I already stand up 6AM and took some small breakfast; I couldn’t eat much because the spacer really hurt now. I also took a big Ibuprofen to prevent my jaw to hurt while the fixation. And then took a shower and prepared to go to the office.
I was 5 minutes earlier in the office and noone else was there, not even the women at the reception. I just sat down and waited, being a bit nervous. After a while my ortho showed up and said “You don’t need to be scared, just come inâ€
Right now the pain mostly wore off.
that sounds not acceptable to me.. Thank you for the tip. I will remove the pics tomorow, to bad ...
). Ah and finally after 2 months a horrible lisp from the elastics settled down to zero, I really thought I always would talk that bad. My mom rarely understood me (She has some ear problems too)