bloody stupid ortho...grumble grumble grumble

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#31 Post by **tulip** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 6:17 pm

That is one mountain out the way now!!! You made it. Hopefully you will have a much beter sleep tonight, and not have the braces-at-work thing on your mind anymore!

#32 Post by **Natalie** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 4:26 am

i think it's easier for me to show them off to get the anxiety over with more quickly then it's done if you know what i mean! i remembered after i posted last night that one collague did say 'you look like jaws', she said it with a smile and i don't think she was trying to be horrible but it's still not the nicest thing to say. anyway i guess it can't have upset me that much as i didn't remember to post about it last night. this lady's not the greatest of communicators anyway and she has managed to upset SO many people on our at shift at one time or another so i suppose i shouldn't pay her too much attention. thanks for everyone's help and comments, it is very much appreciated

i think the next hurdle will be my boyfriend seeing them for the first time...i live in england and he lives in scotland at the moment, he's moving down in 3 weeks and 4 days and that'll be the first time he sees them, but he's stuck with me then anyway! ha ha.

#33 Post by **Natalie** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 10:24 am

well it's been just over a week now, nearly a week and a half and i'm feeling much better about my braces, at times i've actually forgot that i had them believe it or not! i was having a cigarette outside (trying not to smoke inside in an attemot to quit shortly) and my landlord/neighbour was out there, i was talking away and he said...'oh you've had your braces' and i was like like...'oh...yeah!', i'd just forgotten! i was permanently aware of them before so this surprised me a lot! they are starting to feel much much more normal which i'm thrilled about, in a few weeks i think they will have completely become a part of me. only problems at the moment are that i seem to be clenching a lot, not sure why, also one of my bottom teeth at the front as of last night decided to become ultra sensitive, didn't react well when i was rinsing my mouth out with cold water and mouth wash and is responding also to hot (cup of tea), i don't know if that has anything to do with the braces and teeth moving ??? also i've noticed since i've had them on i've slept A LOT! is this normal? i'm wondering if the physical 'trauma' may be making me sleep as a recovery process...any ideas?

#34 Post by **Natalie** » Sat Nov 18, 2006 7:16 am

i've had my braces for 4 weeks and a day now and had my first adjustment yesterday which went ok. not been in too much pain, apart from accidentally banging my teeth together in the night! ow! i changed from baby pink ligs to purple ligs and i like them a lot. my boyfriend who's been living in scotland, moves down to england today to be with me and he's not seen my braces yet so i am a little nervous about that! it's wierd, i feel fine about my braces and about people seeing them and they have become a part of me but i'm still nervous about him seeing them for the first time! why?! i don't know! anyway...time for me to go swallow some painkillers methinks, i have to practice my kissing later! ha ha. bye for now

#35 Post by **Natalie** » Sat Nov 18, 2006 7:41 am

thanks karen, i KNEW you'd be pleased about the choice of lig colour!

#36 Post by **Natalie** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 3:42 pm

not posted for a while, just to recap...my bottom teeth were the main problem, had braces on them now for nearly 4 months and here is the progress (bear in mind pic 1 was after extractions and so they had spaced slightly from before the extractions anyway). the progress is steady, just waiting for that 1 tooth to straighten intself out!

the time has gone pretty quickly i guess, in just 6 days i will have had these on for 4 months which seems strange, i'm hoping that the rest of the time will just fly, only another 5-8 months to go for me going by the intial estimation so fingers crossed!

the tops haven't really moved too much as yet (but they have nowhere near as many probs anyway) so haven't bothered as yet to post pics of them.

#37 Post by **smallbutmighty** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 8:49 pm

Hi Natalie,
Quite a nice change in those bottom teeth already. How was the reunion with your boyfriend? Is he still in the picture? Hope work and life in general is good for you!
Ruth

#38 Post by **Natalie** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 11:05 am

thanks for the replies! yep i'm still with my boyfriend and he's not bothered about my braces at all, he's always telling me how gorgeous i am (i better start believing him soon! haha) and the other day when he said it i said 'even with braces?' and he said 'even with braces' then he went on to tell me he couldn't even remember how i looked before them now! other people have said the same thing...i guess they'll all have a shock when they come off hey. i've just realised that actually i started this treatment a year ago (with extractions and molds and removable appliance etc), can't believe it's been a year, i feel so positive that these things will be off before i know it when i look at it like that, it'll all be over and done in less time than when this whole thing started!

#39 Post by **Natalie** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 10:44 am

i had my fourth adjustment today so i've had these on for 5 months now...bearing in mind my estimation time given at the beginning was 9-12 months i suppose i'm halfway there (ortho says i have a couple of wires left to go so 2 more adjustments in 2 months i believe then onto closing gaps)...i really don't feel like with how my teeth are right now that i'm halfway through the process but then i'm not an ortho...anyway i'm not happy...

at my appt today i had some shaping done mainly on my left lateral which is, or was, bigger than my right one, it's always bothered me so with having braces this second time round i was looking forward to getting this sorted as it was never sorted before. throughout the month between my appt i usually have a few questions going through my mind and want to ask the questions at my appt...but i feel like i'm not getting the aswers from my ortho. she thinks nothing of sticking something in my mouth whilst i'm trying to talk to her (which obviously stops me from talking) and she doesn't give the impression that she has time to spend with me discussing my treatment, she seems to think it's enough to just do what needs to be done and that's that. the sort of person i am means that i need to ask questions, i need to understand things...i want to know how my treatment is gonna pan out so i can look forward to it. when i ask questions, a lot of the time she doesn't answer what it is that i have asked, maybe she doesn't understand what i'm asking but then she must be pretty intelligent to be doing the job she's doing...and i believe i'm an excellent communicator (not meaning to blow my own trumpet there!) bearing in mind it's MY JOB to communicate. anyway basically i just feel like i'm being an arkward patient when i ask stuff and i feel like when i get an answer...that i don't really have an answer. also today she pointed out that my two front teeth are also not perfectly symmetrical size wise so now i have something else to fixate on that i'd never even noticed before! at the moment when i smile my lip covers more of my left front tooth and lateral than the right side of my lip and the left teeth appear to be further up in my gum that the right side...i asked if this would be resolved so that my smile was symmetrical at the end and she told me that ortodontics straightened the teeth but did not change the gums and so i would have to have some sort of gum surgery to recify that...which i never knew, i never realised...looking at other peoples' pics and reading other people's stories i thought that teeth sort of moved up and down the gum line if you can try to understand what i mean by that...

just to vent a little further...at the beginning of my treatment (after my extractions...which we'll get onto shortly!) i was given an upper removable appliance to bring my top canines back into the gaps from the extractions a little, i had this for like 6/7 months before my fixed braces were put on. initially she said that she may put the fixed bottoms on whilst i was wearing this (as my main prob is with the bottoms, lots of crowding, very crooked) but she never did...and now it feels like nothing much is happening with the tops and she seems to be waiting for the bottoms to be straight first. so i think...why didn't she put the bottoms on before the tops so they could get moving (saving time) and why did i even have that bloody removable thing anyway as there was very little movement and it seems to have made no difference whatsoever and no one else i have read about on here seems to have had one with extractions. on top of that there are the extractions themselves...as i'm losing confidence in this ortho and learning more about the process i'm worried that the extractions were a mistake (not that there's any point in worrying, not a lot i can do about it) and i'm wishing i had had other consults before going ahead (but i didnt because over here on the uk you have to pay a lot for each consult and besides the practice seemed to be the best around), maybe they would have done the treatment without taking out 4 healthy teeth. at first when i went to see her she was like yep we'll get you the perfect smile and now she seems to be saying well it wont be perfect because your teeth aren't the perfect shape and thay're what you've been born with...the gum line will be odd etc etc. she seems a little behind the times in some ways, for example when i got the braces put on she told me not to floss or use a sonicare because of the braces...WHY?! so i'm thinking if she's behind the times with this sort of thing then what else is she not up to date on. my teeth really weren't too bad to begin with, nothing other people prob would have picked up on and i decided to do this pretty much purely for cosmetic reasons...and now i'm thinking was there any point? if i'm not gonna have the perfect smile i feel i was promised then have i wasted all this money and time and effort? maybe it's just the way i'm feeling today, i don't know. i just wish i could fast forward to the end result to relax but i know i can't and so i'm worring that what i'll be left with wont fulfill my expectations. sorry to go on and on but i do feel better and i want to record my braces experience fully so unfortunately i'm having to include some bad stuff too. also if any of you have experienced anything similar to this and can offer any advice then that would be great...

#40 Post by **joney** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 5:53 pm

Hi Natalie

Sorry to hear that you're feeling so bad about your treatment. It definitely doesn't sound as though your ortho is a good communicator. The only thing I can suggest to stop her working on you to prevent you talking is that you sit up straight in the chair and ask her questions before she starts to work on your teeth. At the very least she will have to answer your questions and she should do. You obviously have a lot of concerns.

I have heard of people having gum recontouring and IPR here and this may be an option for you later if needed.

I've also had contradictory information. My dentist told me not to use an electric toothbrush but the hygienist recommended that I buy one. I bought a sonic toothbrush and it is great. I think that these braces are pretty well stuck onto my teeth so a toothbrush isn't going to tear them off!

Being told not to floss by your orthodontist certainly seems very strange indeed.

If you don't get any satisfaction next time you visit then you could always get another consultation. My initial consultation cost Â£25 which in the scheme of things is not an awful lot.

Good luck, I hope things improve for you.

Regards
Joney

#41 Post by **Natalie** » Tue Aug 14, 2007 9:01 am

just reread my last post and unfortunately things have not changed a huge amount. i'm still unhappy with my ortho and still think that she's an incredibly bad communicator.

i went for an adjustment last week sometime having been wearing these fixed braces for approx 9 months now, i had previously called and spoken to the manager about the issues concerning me and she arranged a 'talking' appt where she would be present also. when i went into me appt unfortunately it was just me and my ortho and her assistant as usual. i tried my very best to explain my concerns to the ortho but i swear to god she just DOES NOT LISTEN!!! so i ended up getting really frustrated. my left lateral is still a bit bigger and a different shape to my right lateral, my left front tooth is also still smaller than my right one...i understand that braces cannot change the shpe of size of teeth but before i started this treatment i was promised the perfect hollywood smile with the use of braces and reshaping. my ortho does not want to make my left lateral any smaller because it is compensating for the fact that one of the front teeth is also slightly smaller than the other fair enough BUT the right side of my smile is a lot lower than the left side...the left lateral is angled differently to the right...i want the left lateral to be a little lower and at the same angle as the right one, i want the right lateral a little higher and at the same angle as the left one...my left canine was far too short and getting shorter so needs to be made to appear a little longer and the right canine also needs to appear a little longer but it's not possible to tell until the lateral's are sorted...also...the front right tooth is a little lnger than the left one...now as i said before i appreciate the fact that braces cannot alter the shape and sixe of teeth but as i have seen with other peoples' teeth braces can give the appearance of a longer or shorter teeth depending on where the brackets are placed. i have tried my best to explain this to her but she just kept going back to the same answer - 'braces cannot alter the shape or size of teeth' I KNOW THAT!!!

finally we seemed to be getting somewhere and she repositioned the bracket on my left canine to bring that down a little...so if she can do that with one then why can't she do it so the others are in their propper positions?! i have no idea. and i never got an answer. she did also however twist the wire a little i think to try to bring down one side a bit. after my meeting with her i spoke at length to one of the practice managers called lisa who is fantastic! i spoke to lisa before goi ahead with the treatment because she herself has been through it and she understands completely how i feel. she also understands every single issue i have with my teeth and what it is i want to achive and why i feel so frustrated with the ortho. she has told me that i am not the first person to complain about the fact it is so hard to communicate with her. lisa is going to try her best to get through to fran (the ortho) exactly what it is that i want, she is also going to speak to the partners in the firm to make them aware of the issues. i am to phone lisa 2 weeks after my last adjustment to tell her if things seem to be moving how i want them to and if not she's going to get me straight in with fran to get her to do SOMETHING! personally having researched it so much and seen other peoples' progress i think that fran needs to reposition brackets so that the teeth can move up and down and change angles because the way my top teeth look now is no better than they did before i started the treatment. my bottom teeth were the main offenders but i also wanted the top teeth to be as symmetrical as possible or i wouldn't have bothered forking out so much money and investing so much timewise and emotionally. now fran is talking about veneers...er hello? that's what i was going to do initially and was talked out of!!! i'm certainley not going to go through all this and pay out this much and then fork out another astronomical amount for veneers! i could have just done that in the first place!

anyway i need to give it about another week and if things don't seem to be improving i'm to phone lisa. theres loads more i could go into but it's kinda difficult to remember it all and explain it in writing without being able to point to things in my mouth. i'll try to post some pics soon to illustrate. ok rant over...and hopefully things will start to improve soon now that i have lisa on board

#42 Post by **Miss Smiley** » Tue Aug 14, 2007 9:54 am

Yikes, what a journey. I hope that your ortho realizes your wants and helps you acheive the best result possible without compromising your bite.