So, I finally got my spacers in today, and I must say that I am excited to be finally starting the process.
So.. I went to the Ortho's, was called back, hopped into the chair, and was told that they needed to make backup moulds of my teeth because the earlier impressions didn't have my wisdom teeth in them, so I had to do the moulds again. The first time, I chose mint, this time, I chose cheesecake! I really hate the way the moulds feel on my teeth, but at least they had a nice scent.
Then it was time for the spacers... OUCH!! They hurt REALLY badly while trying to be wedged in there. My teeth are REALLY crowded, so there was no room for the poor things... I felt a little bad because when the assistant was putting them on, I couldn't help but scream OUCH!... She seemed ok with it though. She told me that many patients think spacers are the worst part of the treatment, and that if I needed tylenol to feel free to take some.
Something weird about the spacers is that she only put two in, one in between my 1st and 2nd molar on the right, and one in between my wisdom tooth and 2nd molar on the left..... I would understand this if a band was going around the wisdom tooth, but I am getting my wisdom tooth extracted, so I am unsure of why there was only one spacer there. When I asked her about it, she said that, that is what it said to do in my chart, and she was following the plan.
After that, she asked if I had any questions, and I asked her to see the ligature colors so that I could think about my descision for my first set of colors. It was then that my second concern came up. She told me "ok, but you are getting self-ligating braces and we don't use the ligs on those".... I was shocked to hear this, because at my consult I was told I would be getting traditional braces, and damnit, thats what I wanted! I told her of this, and she talked to the ortho, and he okayed the traditional braces.... At least they listened to my complaint, although it REALLY bothers me that if I hadn't asked, I probably would have ended up with something different to what I was told..
I asked them what type of traditional braces they would be using on me, and they told me Mini Twins by Unitech.. Has anyone ever heard of these type of braces?! I tried doing some research and found nothing.....
So, here I am, freshly "spaced".... waiting for next week to come for my brace-day.... I must say that I was REALLY impressed by my ortho at the consult and really liked his staff... but today, I felt... uninformed.. I felt like they had made a change to what they initially told me, and were going to change it without even telling me... sure, now I am getting what I was initially told, but something about the fact that they didn't inform me of this in the first place is really bothering me...I guess I am just going to keep my fingers crossed and hope that it was just a misunderstanding that hardly ever happens...
Anyway, here is a before pic of my smile and arches, and you can see the spacers as well...
Upper arch, no spacers:
Lower arch, painful spacers:
Goodbye icky bite and headaches, hello good times!!
