That Girl With Braces...My Journey Begins

[hannah164]

THat looks awesome Thatgirlwithbraces! They look very nice! I really like your lip gloss too!

-Hannah




Top braces: 4/28/04
Bottom braces: 11/16/05

[wiredinLA]

That looks great Thatgirlwithbraces!

How does it feel so far??

Hope to join you in a couple of weeks myself. I have an appt on Thrs for molds, x-rays and all that jazz.

[chrisd]

wow, looks great. amazing just how unnoticable those upper ceramics really are
good luck
chris

[thatgirlwithbraces]

Pain has all but disappeared. Feeling good now!

My teeth have definitely moved a little bit. My lowers are very tight. I can't even floss between some of them. Woo hoo.

I gotta get the pokey wires clipped ASAP. They're sticking out just enough to be painful. I've been putting wax on all four ends. If I had little wire cutters, I'd just do it myself...ortho probably wouldn't like that though...

Eating is still a chore, but since I love food, I'm just dealing with it and cleaning my teeth accordingly.

I ate chocolate caramels and cheetos. Bad, bad, bad...but nothing is broken.

Cheers!

[arnette]

Pain has all but disappeared. Feeling good now!

My teeth have definitely moved a little bit. My lowers are very tight. I can't even floss between some of them. Woo hoo.

I gotta get the pokey wires clipped ASAP. They're sticking out just enough to be painful. I've been putting wax on all four ends. If I had little wire cutters, I'd just do it myself...ortho probably wouldn't like that though...

Eating is still a chore, but since I love food, I'm just dealing with it and cleaning my teeth accordingly.

I ate chocolate caramels and cheetos. Bad, bad, bad...but nothing is broken.

Cheers!

Hey there! I was reading your thread and I'm sort of in the same boat as you. I had braces years ago in my early teens but want to get them again (hopefully ceramics) to fix all the shifting over the years. What kind/color of ligs did you get and how has the response been to your new smile?? After seeing your pic there's really no way I would have known you had some hardware on your teeth without it being on a braces forum. That's great! Makes me a little less nervous about getting ceramic braces for myself.

Good luck! Oh, are you worried about staining at all? And how the heck do you floss around the wires?

[thatgirlwithbraces]

I've totally adjusted to my braces and am happy to report that my teeth aren't hurting at all now. Of course my 1st adjustment is in a few weeks, so I know more pain is to come. And I shall be prepared with liquid gel tylenol or something similar.

I've been good about keeping my mouth clean. I floss once a day. I brush two to three times a day depending on what I eat.

I have a waterpik and a sonicare toothbrush, so there's really no excuse to have gross braces.

One more thing, I bought Superfloss and I think it's the next best thing to sliced bread. It's made flossing sooo much easier.

Anyone else having crunchy teeth? I say crunchy because when I bite down on them they kind of crunch...I guess that means they're moving?

I seem to remember this happening when I was a kid with braces...*shrugs* It's better than pain!

[thatgirlwithbraces]

My teeth have gotten so lovely! Totally used to the braces now and as usual, my flossing has dwindled to about once ever other day. HORRIBLE! I know...

I've been in elastics a couple of months. Wearing two medium rubberbands on each side to correct my overbite and bring my top front teeth back to fix my slight overjet.

The actual positioning of the top hooks has changed a couple of times and the teeth move. The ortho has put space in between my teeth as needed to facilitate movement.

His goal is to make my teeth naturally "fall into place."

I was told to keep wearing double elastics on each side 24/7 until my top front teeth actually met my bottom teeth and I could not bite down properly.

This finally happened in the wee hours of the morning. I awoke to intense pain in my left jaw and discovered that I could not bite down.

I quickly removed the elastics to let my teeth slide forward enough to where I could eventually bite together.

My jaw ached into my ear canal. Ouch! It still hurts!

I believe the clenching caused by the elastics causes the jaw pain.

I ran to the bathroom mirror and checked out my teeth. To my surprise, my midline was now aligned perfectly! So that was why my jaw ached! My top jaw had actually been "Realigned" so to speak by the elastics!

My ortho had told me to back off the elastics once my teeth meet like that. I felt like they would move too much if I abstained from any elastics during the day so I've got just one rubberband on each side right now. My back teeth are meeting very nicely now and I want to keep a bit of pressure on my front teeth to keep them in place.

I may give my ortho a ring today just to ensure I am following his instructions correctly.

I am starting my spring semester of my junior year in college today.

I'm ready!

Will be posting a picture of my teeth soon so everyone can see my improvement!

YAY!

[thatgirlwithbraces]

[/img]