I am a happily married 40-year old woman. We have one son, who is 14 years old. He has had his braces on since June 2007, and will hopefully be getting them off this summer.
I have had my upper braces on for 9 Days. Today is the first day I haven't desperately needed to apply wax to the brackets on my rear teeth. My inner cheeks are finally building up some nice callouses. Yay!!
I will get my lower braces at the end of May. My top teeth need to move out a bit before I can have them put on.
I am still having a hard time chewing, I find that I much prefer soft foods these days. It doesn't really hurt anymore, it just feels strange, I feel like I am not able to bite down completely. On the positive side though, it is helping me stick to my Weight Watchers Points though, since I am so conscious of everything that I eat!
I still feel like my top lip does not want to completely cover my braces, I wonder how strange I really look. So far, the friends that have seen me say that my braces are hardly noticeable, which is good. My husband is the only one who is teasing me, but I don't mind because he is the one who encouraged me to get braces in the first place.
Most people would have said that I didn't need braces, but I was really unhappy with my smile. I have some crowding on my upper teeth, and a little bit of a crossbite/overbite going on. For the past few years, I have cringed whenever I looked at a picture of myself smiling, I felt like my teeth looked terrible. My husband knew this, so when our then 12-year old son needed braces about two years ago, he encouraged me to go in for a consult with the orthodontist as well. I debated over whether or not I should go, whether I should spend the money (adult orthodontics were not covered by our insurance), etc. for the past year and a half.
I went in for a dental cleaning in February, and the dentist actually recommended that I get braces to help with the crowding/crossbite/overbite issues. I decided to stop debating and just do it. I went in for a consult with my orthodontist at the end of February, and because all of the kids here are taking the FCAT tests, they had an opening the very next week.
So I got my upper braces on March 2, 2010. I opted for ceramics because we have some travel planned, and I didn't want a metal mouth for all of the pictures I hope to take. So far I am happy with them, even though the brackets are bigger than my son's metal ones (which is what he wanted), they are hardly noticeable from a few feet away.
That's my story so far
