2thjewelry - my story

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#1 Post by **2thjewelry** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 3:47 pm

Hello all! I'm new here and just found this forum after about a year and a half in braces. I'm learning so much from everyone that I thought I'd share my own tale...

It started with the baby tooth that crumbled in my mouth one day just as I bit into a sandwich. I knew the tooth probably wouldn't last forever, but at age 46, after living with it for so long, I guess I wasn't really expecting it to just disintegrate like it did either. It was in February 2004 when I went to see the dentist with nothing but the tiniest bone shard where the tooth used to be. The dentist gave me two choices: have the impacted canine removed and get an implant, or get braces and have the canine exposed and reeled in on a chain. Not liking the idea of throwing out a perfectly good tooth that just happened to be a little stuck (or so I thought) I opted for the braces and thus began my journey.

The braces went on in April 2004 and there were several adjustments and new wires before I finally visited the surgeon in October 2004 to have what was left of the baby tooth removed and the canine exposed. This went much like others experience here -- lots of bleeding, difficulty eating for a few days, then all healed well. The tooth was tied to some type of spring gizmo, the first of several I would go through the first year to manipulate the tooth back away from the front teeth and bring it into position to pull it in. The final spring gizmo (sorry -- I don't have much of an orthodontic vocabulary) was the worst as it was attached inside to a back tooth and I got my tongue stuck on it all the time. I was about a year into the ordeal and the canine stopped moving and in fact was pulling the tooth it was attached to out of alignment and changing my bite. So the spring was removed and I was sent back to the surgeon in September 2005 to have the tooth re-exposed. It is now tied with an elastic string to the archwire and I'm hoping that it will start moving forward, eventually erupt, and come in enough to have a bracket put on and attached to the braces.

I've had a lot of anxiety about this for the past few months because as much as I'm really starting to hate these braces, what I hate even more is the thought that I could go through all this and still might end up having to get an implant. At the start of this my orthodontist said there was about a 1 in 5 chance that it would not work. I was beginning to lose hope when I came upon this forum and read other stories similar to mine where the tooth was taking a long time coming in. My new thinking is that since it was manipulated a little to bring it into position to start reeling it in, it probably is not ankylosed and so not completely stuck, just stubborn.

So thanks for this space to share my story, and thanks for your stories, especially those tales of impacted canines.

#2 Post by **johnnys_angel** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 10:59 pm

Hello 2th jewelry!Good luck on your journey and welcome to the board

#3 Post by **2thjewelry** » Sun Oct 30, 2005 2:06 pm

Thanks for the warm welcome!

KK -- I was reading your saga and saw that there was an upcoming decision to be made on the canine. I will be interested in seeing how things work out for you. Good luck!