My braces journey with pics

Message

#1 Post by **bigsmilee** » Sat Oct 22, 2005 8:11 pm

Hi everyone

Im 21 years old nearly 22 and Im in Australia. I have a really small mouth and huge teeth! Lucky me huh

I never got braces when I was younger because my teeth were totally straight! It was from the age of 16 onwards that my teeth started to crowd until my front teeth overlapped and my bottom teeth were very crowded. I also had a very large overbite as you can see from my plaster mould.

Due to study commitments etc I didnt get around to getting braced until the begining of this year. My treatment is being done by a general dentist. I went initally to get invisialign but he said it would be much quicker if I went for traditional brackets and so I did! I started out by wearing a clark transforce expander from April 2005 to July 2005 and then I got braced top and bottom. Top in clear and bottom in metal. The upper brackets kept popping so my dentist changed to them to metal. My estimate was 18 months but I will be getting them off by December this year after wearing some elastics to close up the open bite I have. Then I will be getting a special plate to wear 24/7 for about 6 months to help with my tongue thrust habbit which is why I have the open bite in the first place. My dentist did not want to do any extractions as he felt it would flatten my mouth which would not be a good look for me but I did have my wisdom teeth removed in 2003... I don't know if this has substantially compromised my result but I guess I dont really want a flat mouth....

So total treatment time will be 9 months including the expander. Here are some pics

Sorry but in some of the bracketed ones the pics were taken after I had a meal

so they might not look so great

PRE BRACES

http://au.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/bigbra ... m=f9b7.jpg

http://au.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/bigbra ... m=9c14.jpg

http://au.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/bigbra ... m=d56a.jpg

http://au.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/bigbra ... m=b85d.jpg

OCTOBER 2005

http://au.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/bigbra ... m=ac3f.jpg

http://au.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/bigbra ... m=6581.jpg

http://au.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/bigbra ... m=3683.jpg

#2 Post by **hannah164** » Sat Oct 22, 2005 9:06 pm

Bigsmilee!

Welcome! Congratulations on your journey! Thats incredible that you only have to have braces for 9 months!
Good luck!

-Hannah

//tickers.TickerFactory.com/ezt/d/4;54;101/st/20051116/e/Bottom+Braces/dt/-3/k/95ad/event.png[/img]
[/url]

#3 Post by **bigsmilee** » Sat Oct 22, 2005 9:59 pm

Thanks guys I appreciate it

I dont really know if its such a good thing though. I mean my teeth still arent exactly how I wanted them but i guess since I didnt have extractions this is as good as it will get. My bottoms still are'nt a 100%. I only had my wire changed once throughout the whole process and my elastics have been changed twice. Kinda strange I guess. My dentist used mostly wire ties for stubborn teeth and in the beggining he used power chains for my bottoms.