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Top braces came off about an hour ago. It was a relatively painless procedures. I had a mix of sapphire brackets and Damon 2's. The metal brackets came off very easily. The assistant did it with a pair of metal clippers (well, that's what they looked like). The ortho did the sapphire ones. There was a special set of clippers for those - it looked like it was made of plexiglass, definitely not metallic. There was a little more pressure, discomfort and NOISE taking the sapphires off. There was a distinct SNIP sound for each one. He had some trouble getting the brackets off the front teeth. Well, I guess I should say that I was the one who had trouble. It did hurt a little more than I was expecting. So, he ended up using the drill/sander to get one of them off because I was whining when he was trying to snip it off. But the sanding was just fine. And, having my teeth shined up was fine also.
I got a mold taken to fit me with an Essex retainer which I will get on Monday.
So, I have to go off now and spend time looking at my teeth in the mirror. They look so much bigger than they used to! And, I keep running my tongue over my teeth too. It feels very strange, especially the back ones. But it feels WONDERFUL.
May you all have this experience soon (well, at least on schedule)!
Spacers: 1/26/05; 2/6/06; 3/15/06; 4/24/06
4 First Bicuspids removed: 2/2005
Metal Braces, top and bottom: 3/1/05; Debanded 7/26/07
Hawley retainers top and bottom
And, I'm quite fond of Spanish food and sherry, so I've often appalled people by asking them if they wanted to go to a tapas bar with me. As you can imagine, many of them assumed I wanted to go to the local topless bar.
