Me, I'm a 30 year old woman in Australia who's been reading the forum in lurk-mode for a bit and has now decided to say hello.
I've always been deathly afraid of dentists, but about 6 months ago one of my molars had become so badly decayed there was only about 1/5 of it left, so it was about time I did something. Went to dentist that specialised in the "anxiety patient", she took x-rays, sent me off to the dental surgeon for him to have a look and the result was that in January this year I had seven teeth removed under general anaesthetic. Two molars, three wisdoms, and the two baby upper canines that never fell out and the adult ones had grown out sort of over the top.
And then once that had all healed up....the braces. Yow. Ceramics on the uppers, metal on the lowers (with purple ligatures on those, heh). They hurt rather a lot for the first two weeks and the upper ones still do and apparently will until my canines have been pulled down. It REALLY hurts getting the ligatures replaced on those top ones!
Just last week I got two anchor points installed in my lower jaw by the periodontist, so that my one remaining molar on each side can be pulled forward. There's nothing quite like the feeling of having a little bolt thing screwed into your jaw. This week I'll be having all that attached up by the orthodontist. The fun never ends!
Small photo, only have a cameraphone at the moment:
(It's really annoying having the longer lengths of exposed archwire in the front there...plenty of opportunities to bump them. *#%$@*#!! The canines have moved down about 3mm in the 3 weeks I've had them already, though, so hopefully not for much longer...)
So anyway...nice to meet you all.
