I was out in the Dominican Republic last week, and couldn't resist popping into a dentist office to get my ligatures changed. She pulled out a huge box of every color possible (the biggest selection I'd every seen before), and picked out metallic blue (which I'd never seen before at the normal dentist offices which I frequent) and sky blue combination. Although I
hate regular blue ligatures, blue in general is my favorite color, and the metallic blue and sky blue ligature combination is probably my favorite so far.
She charged me $20.00 for this service (tourist rip-off price??) As you can see she messed up the color alternation and there is one place where there are sky blue matching. Sorry for the photo do not do the colors justice, very hard to get a photo with the colors right.
A few notes about ligature colors and braces in general, in the Dominican Republic:
1. Most people told me that they get their ligatures changed every week, or every two weeks, and others "whenever they feel like it". Nobody seemed to be on the standard monthly or bimonthly schedule. Despite this MOST had boring ligature colors (pink, gray, red, etc.... occasional cyan which seems to get popular around this time of the year internationally)
2. Some people told me that they had braces only as a status symbol, and some others told me that most people who had braces (women & men in their 20's, 30's, and 40's) have them as status symbols and not for need. Some people thought I had braces as a status symbol, and one person even checked to see if I had molar bands to see if they were just for a status symbol or for actual need (an interesting litmus test, I thought).
3. While out with a friend in an upscale disco (where roughly half of the people - both guys and ladies - had braces, all metallic of course), we met a lady with ceramic braces (interestingly she had metallic ligatures though). Bought her a drink and ended up she was not from Dominican Republic but Venezuela. I asked her why she had ceramic braces and not metallic ones, and she said, "Ceramic braces are for the upper class. Metallic braces are for people from the ghetto". End of conversation - I try not to associate with people with ceramic braces.
34 y/o guy with full metal brackets and molar bands since 12/16/2009.
1st Adjustment + secondary molar bands 1/23/2010.
2nd Adjustment 3/27/2010.
3rd Adjustment 5/1/2010.
4th Adjustment 6/11/2010.
5th Adjustment 9/29/2010.
6th Adjustment 2/8/2011.
Ahh...you're so lucky you can actually get different coloured ligs! In 20 days, I shall be getting boring old silver braces put on my top teeth. It's a shame my ortho doesn't do colours. Ahh, well...
