Betsy's getting braces

[BetsyBug]

[maeby]

Congrats! They look amazing!! Excellent color choice, too.

[BetsyBug]

I am so sorry those are so giant...I will figure out how to resize better next time.

so I had this giant post of exactly what happened at my bracing and it disappeared so I'm going to try again.

first about the pictures, the first one (smile) was directly after I had the braces on. I don't know if you can see but the top wire is pretty wonky coming down to the front incisors...that has straightened out alot already. The top arch is rounding out alot already as well. Bottom teeth, well are all still pretty wonky, the one that is behind the two other teeth isn't on the wire yet, and I don't have a wire on the one babytooth that I have so it will take a little while for those to get involved. But so far I like the changes I can see. (btw the second two pics are from today, so its day two for those pictures)
You can see the turbos behind my front teeth, those things suck....can't chew but I can feel shifting already in my jaw and they seem closer already so hopefully I won't be stuck with them for too terribly long.

Ok so bracing was pretty non eventful.
I about gagged on the etchant, it ran under my tongue and starting burning...that was so not awesome...LOL
The whole process took less than 40 mins.
The biggest thing was the first time closing my mouth around all this metal....it felt huge. Its starting to feel more normal now. The girl who put my wire in was sweet her name was Katie she has braces too... for the second time. So at least she knows how it feels. Went over the normal no-no food list and how to brush and floss. And I was outta there. Next appointment in 6 weeks.

It was pretty much a whirlwind.

The kids didn't really react at all....my son just shrugged at me, my daughter said they were kinda cute. LOL. I don't know about cute. My husband is good with it though he told me this morning I talked funny. He followed it up with it was a cute funny though. yeah sure.....

work has been ok. It was harder to talk yesterday than it is today, so hopefully it will continue to improve.

The big deal is no chewing at all.....teeth just can't come close enough together to damage any food....so soup and liquids only for now. Not much pain, just a general ache.

So thats it for now...me and my lisp must get back to work

ttyl

[Jesshasbraces24]

your band colors make me regret getting ceramics! My bands have stained yellow now : (

[BetsyBug]

Jess,
I just couldn't bring myself to pay more for the ceramics....so I decided I would make the most of my metal and go with color

if you knew me in person, you would understand, I may have a corporate job but I really don't take myself too seriously!

speaking of myself....I realized I did a poor job of introducing myself, I worked in human resources for a pretty big company doing recruiting. However, I am a junior at the university getting a second bs degree in secondary education with a focus in math and science. I plan on graduating within another year and hopefully get a job locally teaching math and science to 6,7 and 8th graders. My first degree is in biology/environmental science but since the energy field went to crap in 2009 it became hard to work in that field. (besides I was never really happy doing it, originally was trying decide between environment and teaching and apparently I picked the wrong one.)

So I'm planning on a rainbow of ligs before its all said and done

[lau]

Nice braces Betsy! i salute you for also getting metal braces, i also have the Corp job and know how it feels. but there was no way i would do it if i had to pay double (which is what my ortho quoted me)

[Bec There]

I think the blue ligs look great! I think I'll get them next time

It's great when you notice progress isn't it, makes the journey worthwhile!

[BetsyBug]

Thanks Bec!!!

I refuse to take myself so seriously that I cant have fun with colors

how are you doing today??? I'm a bit sore today, different teeth now. But the good news is I can feel my jaw teeth coming closer together now so the turbos are doing their job. I can pretty much chew whatever I want to eat now, but crunchy food is still pretty painful. So I'm sticking to softer foods right now. I don't feel like I'm looking at a stranger in the mirror now, the first few days were pretty funny. Everytime I found myself infront of the mirror I was admiring my teeth...lol.

All in all things are going pretty well. I can feel more movement then I can see. I'm looking forward to when some of these wonky teeth straighten up.

[VioletJay]

Ooooh I do like your braces! Just getting used to mine. My lips aren't catching as much as they were in the first few days and actually, they've already pulled my front two teeth up so that they're catching the light like my other teeth! I think the difference is millimeters rather than anything else but when the teeth tip back like that, they don't catch the light like the other teeth do, so the difference already has been noticeable! I can't believe what a difference having that torque on the teeth has made, making the light reflect like that - it's really positive!

As far as sensitivity, I'm a little like you - today my front right tooth is a bit funny feeling. My bite has shifted enormously. Nothing fits any more. But I say "bring it on" - it's all evidence of movement! I love it! I am slowly liking these things more and more! I honestly think that once I get used to them, I will really like them and actually begin to have fun with them! Yay! Yay for us!

[Bec There]

Thanks Betsy, I'm doing much better, like yourself! I'm finding it much easier to eat now I'm not in constant achey pain. My teeth are only sore when I chew so no more painkillers for me!

I found this on ebay, which arrived the second day my braces were on, and not soon enough I tell you! The kit contained lots of useful stuff, but the floss threaders make flossing so much more bearable, and halve the time it takes. I'll put the link below, i think they were $7 ish.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/350538500040 ... 834wt_1037

[BetsyBug]

Bec,
I definitely need to get some sort of kit together for my purse that doesn't take up too much space, right now between all the dental stuff in my bag I barely have room for anything else...LOL.

Teeth are sore again today, harder to chew again. Don't know if it has something to do with my jaw closing up with these turbos or what...but my teeth are definitely trying to move. I have noticed some spaces opening up between my molars where they used to be so tight I couldn't hardly floss between them, but the trade off is that my front teeth are jammed so close together they keep breaking my floss....can't win on the flossing game I guess.



so I'm curious how bite turbos are supposed to speed up treatment time. I get that they keep you from biting off your lower braces, and I get how they open your bite (though I haven't seen alot of change in the distance my jaw is open yet) but how else do they make things go faster. The ortho said they would cut up to 6 months off of my treatment time. While this is a good thing I wonder if that is why my teeth are staying so sore.

[trisportgirl]

Hmm, my ortho never told me my turbos would make my treatment time shorter, he just said if I didn't have them I would end up biting off my lower brackets - which I suppose would lengthen my treatment time? I found there was a lot of extra pressure on my front two teeth (which were the ones I needed to move anyways), so this may have made it go faster...

[BetsyBug]

Tri - from what I can tell the biggest difference in time, is that if they hadn't put the turbos on I would have had to wait over 6 months to correct my overbite before they put my lowers on (that is where we gain some time I guess)

So sunday my daughter head butted me just right and knocked the bracket off of my lower eye tooth, so on tuesday I went in and had it re-glued becaused it was driving me crazy... and the ortho decided my teeth were moving so well that he would attach the tooth on the bottom that they left off at first. Its pretty far behind the other two next to it so today I have some serious pressure on my lowers....yay- I think. LOL. They said everything looks really good so I'm just waiting for 5 more weeks to pass until my next appointment.

Not a whole lot to report, no big changes in my mouth, just some wiggliness and soreness telling me my teeth are still moving, and I still can't chew very well (but I'm getting better at it) and I'm still lisping a little from the turbos, but those aren't bothering me very much anymore either.
My cheeks finally have quit being sore, so no more wax most of the time.
its just a hurry up and wait game now.....
Please tell me some of you all have something to report so that I'm not just staring at my teeth in the mirror waiting for movement....come on someone distract me....LOL

[smilehope]

Hi Betsy. Sounds like you're doing really well if you've got that other bracket wired up. Only one week! I'm not expecting to see any change for weeks, doesn't stop me looking for it every time I pass a mirror though!
Ate pain au chocolat today mmmmm

[BetsyBug]

I'm doing my darndest to eat whatever I want.... I tried chocolate the other day and it was too hard to chew, so I sucked on it till it melted

I have given up on table manners, I chew however I can to maul my food enough to get it swallowed. Don't know if I will ever be fit to eat in public again

I bet your teeth surprise you and start changing pretty quickly... At least I hope for your sake they do, it helps the time go by a little faster