tommyfive's story from the beginning

[tommyfive]

i did something today which i never thought i would do: i had a consultation with an orthodontist.

why? a lot of people might ask that (if they're brave enough, they might even ask ME that). i'm asking myself that question (and others) over and over again. but not the same way others might ask me.

it's weird. when a kid gets braces, they usually don't have a choice in the matter, and nobody ever asks their parents why they're having the poor kid's mouth filled with metal, even if the kid's teeth didn't look crooked. it's obvious: kids get braces because their parents (have the means to pay for it somehow and) say they have to. from the kid's perspective it's a no-brainer.

parents of kids with braces comiserate over the costs and one-up each other about whose kid's got the worst malocclusion.

kids with braces comiserate over the pain and social effects, and who has the meaner orthodontist.

it's easy, i think. the adult is making the best choice for the kid who doesn't have the wisdom to choose yet.

adults (fending for themselves) shoulder the curse of having to agonize over the choice: whether ot not to get them. adults getting braces (or maybe it's just me?) often ask themselves what others will think of them - will people think i'm doing it because i'm vain? will people see me as a crybaby when i cry poor after i've just poured thousands of dollars into my mouth when they never saw anything wrong? will it be worth it when it's all over?

i know i can't really bother about what other people think or say, i can only address the questions i ask of myself.

but if i can (and here i know i can!) take a minute to put it in perspective, it's not as if i'm spending it on a $40k gas-guzzling suv or some other form of ostentatious public display. this is not the camcorder i *want* to buy, or the macintosh i like to think i'd use to produce video or music; it's not a tool to use in the garage (i'd love to have a lathe, but would i use it?).

but it's so personal and public - i'll be wearing my money on my teeth.

i'm doing it because i've wanted to do this for a long time - since my early twenties - but never realized i could. (it only took asking to find out that i could, but almost twenty years to get to the point where i had the courage to ask.)

i'm doing it because i've always (at least as an adult) hated my teeth, but do not want to take cosmetic measures which will damage them before i have to. straightening them the little bit they need (10 months, or so they tell me) will position the teeth so that future cosmetic work can be done more easily.

this is me doing something for myself, finally, for once. self-improvement. something expensive. something which will make me feel better about myself. i hope.

and if i don't do it now, my kids will take the orthodontic spotlight for the next ten years. i am sure of that.

it's my four front teeth i'm most concerned with. they've always been non-uniform in color and surface features. so what, they're mostly straight, so you'd think: okay cap them or veneer them (which ain't cheap either!).

but my lateral incisors have always stuck out a slight bit, and adding a layer of veneer will only enhance that feature. capping them requires reduction of the tooth (shave off some of the tooth) to cap it. If the tooth is not in the right position before that happens, they'd have to reduce more in order to make the cap look straight. i don't want to shave off any, but if/when it comes to that time, let's keep it to a minimum. straightening them first seems to be the way to go.

...

so i goes to the orthodontist today and they stick fingers and tools in my mouth, take photos and sit me down. the list of things i thought were wrong was not as long as i thought it would be, but orthodontic treatment is prescribable and will address the main problems. those lateral incisors up top, and a slight crowding issue on the bottom. they could also address a slight overbite and a couple of other minor things, since the teeth would be in braces anyway.

so i starts out saying i don't think i want anything that would be purely cosmetic - if you think there's no real need to do this then i will probably walk away.

he sez 'ok then to be honest there's not really much to talk about but i'll tell you what i would do anyway.'

first he agrees with me that the teeth should be straight before they cap or veneer them, it will make the foundataion for better looking caps or veneers. reinforcement: good.

he tells me there's slight crowding on the bottom and my midline is off by 1-2 mm. i didn't think about the crowding until he showed me what he meant, but the midline i knew.

he says for the top front, it would be braces on the top arch and they tell me how much the top arch will cost, to get those lateral incisors pulled back and resized a bit, and to fix my midline (which is off on top, not on the bottom).

and i sez: $$whoa$$ - okay, so what would it cost to do the bottom crowding at the same time? not much more (by comparison). ten months or so in braces in any event.

so i sez i have to sleep on it. that's a lot of money (not as much as a car costs but it means i won't be replacing a car for a year) and i don't want to make that decision right there in the room. there was no pressure, but they did offer to get me in the next day to start putting braces on.

but i'm going to do it.

they gave me the option to go with invisalign vs. standard braces. what did i choose? the less expensive option: braces. when presented with the choice of 'tooth colored' ceramic braces vs. standard metal, again i took the less expensive option: metal. cost is a factor, but...

ceramic vs. metal i simply don't want to worry about what i eat staining the braces. add that factor to the cost and it was a done deal. metal looks like metal, braces are on the teeth, let it be seen and move on.

invisalign vs. braces: basically i want to commit to this, and i feel like if the things are glued to my teeth, i have followed through. i tend to be lazy, and if there's an action i have to take (changing trays every two weeks) it's just something i think i'll let slip or decide i don't care enough about to keep up with it.

it's a personal choice. i'm sure some of you will think i'm insane for turning down invisalign when it was a definite option, but that's what i'm doing.

we're looking at march 1 for my work to start. i'll surely post again in the meantime!

i posted under a different username up to yesterday. if you want to know what that username was, feel free to PM me. i will not be using that name anymore.

thanks

tommy

[tommyfive]

i made my choice between metal and ceramic brackets long before i ever walked into an orthodontist's office. my feeling is you can't really hide the fact that you're wearing braces; it's a personal preference/style thing though; this is just how I feel.

the treatment coordinator told me it's the brackets and the ligs which can stain, so perhaps they're not using ceramic? in any event it's a non-issue for me. thanks for the tip on the silver ligs; i'll prolly go for black ligs.

on the mention of pain, i can only talk about what i've heard kids talk about and what people have written here. accounts are varied, but i've seen it written on this site that 'The first day, it may not hurt too much. The second and third days, it will feel like somebody hit you in the teeth with a baseball.' that sounds like pain to me. it's one person's account of it though.

i'm really not focusing on pain though; i know everyone's got a different case, different pain thresholds, and it's just different for everyone. i don't come into this anticipating a great deal of pain, or that it will last a long time.

thanks!

tommy

[tommyfive]

man that was a long first post, huh? sorry about that. i guess i was excited about it.

anyway, tuesday i go for some fillings between my upper left molars and that's all i need done before the braces go on!

march forth to march first!

[Tin Indian]

Welcome again to the club T5. I'll bet a bunch of us including myself had the same feelings about braces that you described when we first went to see our ortho. Good luck with your decision to go ahead with treatment.

[tommyfive]

it's been a while, so i thought i'd post a quick one. no pix yet...

i got the tops on march 21, and had pretty much no problems. no real pain aside from some sores which came and went, and the tightness - after about 4 days i wished i could take them off just for a few minutes. another funny thing: they made my gums and jaw almost itch. ibuprofen seems to alleviate all that, and after the second week i stopped noticing it.

it took me two days to start eating crunchy things like baby carrots and such, and i think that helped me a lot to get over the initial adjustment. i still miss naked flossing though.

a month or so later on april 19th i got the bottoms on. that was a bit more of a shock, as those teeth are all always concealed by my lips. plus they put a big ol' rectangular wire in the top arch.

it's been two weeks and I've still got one sore that won't quite leave me alone no matter what i do. it's slowly going away, and i'm thinking a few more days and it'll be gone. i think it's those elastic hooks that are really what's doing it. (I only have one hook on each side but I saw some of platinum's photos and if i'm right about those hooks it's no wonder she was so miserable those first days - she's got them all the way back!).

the thing which really surprised me was that they had to put on these special 'bumper' ligs on my 4 fronts and then built up my top molars so i wouldn't bite off the bottom brackets. i'm still getting used to it, and i think the only things that will help speed that along is eating and letting the braces do the work.

i already feel like the bumper ligs can go, as my bite has changed enough so my tops don't touch the bumpers anymore (unless I try to make them touch). 5 more weeks before that changes though unless i break a wire or something...

the thick wire on the top took about 2 weeks to get used to - my top arch felt super tight right up to yesterday and still when i chew anything for more than about 2 minutes i remember it for an hour and feel like I need to floss again NOW.

boring perhaps, but hey... this is my story...

overall i'm still happy about getting this done, and it makes good conversation when people are brave enough to ask about it.

in fact one of my oldest work buddies asked me if i was going to buy myself a corvette next, implying that i'm dealing with a mid-life crisis, to which i responded: hey i've been wanting to do something about my teeth for 20 years - i might as well do it while they're still in my head. i made quick work of that one. anyway i think i'd get a tattoo before i bought a vette (except for maybe a 67 split window). i'm not getting a tattoo.

things I miss:

* steak
* hard salami (tried it once, paid for it for about an hour afterwards!
* flossing normally

pix maybe soon...