My name is CarolEEna and I'm 27. I've known since I was a little girl that I needed braces but my parents weren't able to afford it. I'm in a position now where I can do it and it really needs to be done. I'm terrified yet excited at the same time. Is that even possible?
So far my journey has been a little overwhelming because of the cost. But it needs to be done.
I had my first ortho consult back in Sept 2007. Had my ‘records’ made a week later. Then I had my wisdom teeth extracted on Nov. 7th. My OS ROCKS. It took a while for me to recover from that because my roots were extremely deep and my bottom left one got infected. Yuck.
I decided to get another consult to get a second opinion and was talked into getting records made the same day-luckily they were of no charge. I wasn’t exactly comfortable with him (or the price) though. So I requested a referral from my OS. I went to her and really liked her. The price was in between the original consult and the second consult. The first two places only offered the ceramic on top and metal on the bottom. She offered the Damon3 system and it didn’t hurt that she’s 2 blocks away from where I work and open on some Saturdays. So I decided to go with her.
I wanted to wait until the holidays were over to get the process started. In the meantime, I came across this site and heard about the In-Ovation C brackets. I called my ortho up and asked if it was possible to get these instead of the Damon brackets and they said yes. There wasn’t a big price difference so I decided to go with those.
I scheduled my cleaning and records appointments back to back. But I got a big surprise when I got my teeth examined. She said I needed a deep cleaning and had 7 small cavities and then gave me a quote. I started crying from the shock of the price (we don’t have any dental insurance). They managed to bring it down but it was still a lot of money. So I thought about it for a couple of days and it occurred to me to go down to SPAM and get it done.
I went ahead had my records made on the 8th (only for the 3rd time) and made my down payment. Ouch.
I went down to TJ this past Saturday and was told I only had 4 and didn’t need a deep cleaning. I was/am so confused. So I let him do a ‘general’ cleaning and the 4 cavities. I wasn’t happy with the cleaning-his son did it and he seemed quite nervous. The fillings were fine, I think.
I need to be sure everything is good to have piece of mind. So I’m going tonight to get my teeth re-examined, cleaned, and get a third opinion about the cavities. Depending on the outcome, I may be making another trip to TJ on Monday. I already have an appointment made just in case-this time with a different dr.
I’m scheduled to get braced on Tuesday the 22nd. That is when we’ll go over my treatment plan in detail. I do know that I will need to have 4 bicuspids extracted at some point.
Enough of my blabbering. Here are my before pics:
Thank you in advance for your support!
I went through a lot my first week. It makes it more comfortable as you're getting used to everything.
Oh my gosh, me too! I’m excited to get started on my journey to a better smiles, but so freaking nervous! We are taking it together! Are you going to start a blog somewhere? What time is your appointment tomorrow? My ortho called and wants me to come in 30 minutes earlier, so my new appointment time is 9:30am. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
