Long story short - never had braces as a kid. Remember some talk of it but nothing ever came about. My smile is far from perfect but I've learned (or so I thought) to live with that. I try to hold my mouth a certain way when talking one on one, and have learned little tricks to make the crowding less noticeable, etc. It wasn't until it became more than a cosmetic issue that I thought I'd better do something. Jaw pain and headaches from years of misalignment and crowding led my dentist to schedule a consult. A little over a month later, after one extraction (that was the point of no return for me because the extraction was toward the front and left a gaping hole in my bottom teeth!) and a week in spacers I now find myself in bands and scheduled for B-day on November 1st.
While I'm still extremely excited and I know in the end it wil be worth it health-wise, not to mention smile-wise, I found myself commenting to the husband last night that protein drinks were looking very appealing because eating was already somewhere beyond tedious. And I am only in bands right now!
So, I'm toasting the beginning of this whole process and the next two years will no doubt forever be known as "when I was in braces". My goal is to have them off for my 40th birthday, which is pushing the lower limit of the ortho's 18 to 24 months schedule. I plan on being a model patient though so hopefully I'll surprise him!
