Starfish's braces

[starfish88]

Thanks for the tip. i'll look out for the Glide threader floss - hope they have it in Australia! My waterpik is amazing though. My mouth feels so much cleaner after I have used it and I get that 'flossed' feeling so I'm happy. Had mushrooms and spinach on toast this morning. Only managed a bit of the toast and the spinach makes clean up a nightmare but YUM!

[NICURN85]

Its great to hear that you can manage to eat now!!

[starfish88]

Hi Nicurn, Hope your braces are not too sore. You must be excited!

My teeth are moving along nicely. I did have a really sore tooth a few days ago but thats gone back to a dull ache now and its moved quite a distance so I don't really mind. I did struggle a bit eating on my holiday, I had to eat the topping off a pizza and leave the base but I'm veggi so what I normally eat is pretty soft on the whole! The tooth that was leaning into my mouth has also come a lot more upright so I have a lot more room in my mouth and my tongue is naturally finding the place it should be too! yay! My teeth were pretty messed up so I knew to expect a bit of pain, especially at the beginning. I'm surprised how sore my front teeth are at the bottom as they didn't seem to need to move much though!

Plus thanks to my holiday I have brushed my teeth in some strange places, nature reserves, beaches etc!

[NICURN85]

Hey Star!!

I am actually not sore at all right now. The spacers do not hurt and the brackets are not rubbing and shredding my lips. I thinking that the real pain will come next week when I have the wires and bands put on. I have my waterpik and tried to use it yesterday on the lowest setting and it felt like I was going to blow a bracket or a spacer off. Lol. I do not even want to know what 10 feels like if 2 felt like that. Maybe I just have to get use to it. How is it for you.

[Kipepeo]

Hi Starfish! I didn't read every post in this thread, but I wanted to make a comment. Your teeth are really pretty, and I'm in awe that you have no dental work. Your smile will be fabulous!

[starfish88]

Nicurn: the waterpik takes some mastering! I started off on 2 and have gradually worked up to 10. I like the feeling now! At the start though I hosed down everything in the bathroom losing control over it. My boyfriend even had a look at it and shot water into his eye without even using it! Glad brackets and spacers arent too bad for you at the moment. I found the 10 seconds without wires but with brackets felt really odd, glad I got wires straight away even though my jaw got sore from being open so long.

Kipepeo: Thanks, I feel pretty lucky I havn't had too much dental work. Having my wisdom teeth out before braces is as extensive as it gets! I'm actually quite scared by the increased tooth risks braces bring but I have been being super careful so hopefully it will all be fine.

[NICURN85]

Yes my mouth feels weird now. Will the wire make it feel a little smoother?! I also find now my lips stay chapped all the time. They told me on this Thursday that it will take about an hour-hour and a half to put on the wires and bands. I just have this strange feeling that is when all my pain will start!! Have you used any of the other tips on the Waterpik besides the one you hosed the bathroom down in. My mirror got a good cleaning that day also so don't feel bad.

[MakeKeyOver]

Hi Starfish!
This is off topic but what kind of toothpaste do you use? Your teeth are amazingly white!

[starfish88]

I got my teeth whitened at the dentist about 2 years ago, I don't use a whitening toothpaste but they have stayed quite white despite all the coffee I drink! When i got my teeth whitened at the dentist I got trays made up to continue the whitening at home and was told how much I would save by using the trays for top-ups. Of course now I'll need to get new trays after braces because my teeth wont fit in them. It will be an awsome comparison though!

[starfish88]

Before I got braces I was thinking about getting bonding to make my lateral that was too high as long as the other side. I can't belive braces have acheived that in less than a month! Maybe its not text book perfect but at first glance my social 6 have improved so dramatically already. I also wanted the tooth that was diagonal in my mouth to be more upright and was going to get it removed just because it was so hard to clean and so crouded (My dentist recommended extraction as a 2nd choice if I didn't do braces). Again in less than a month that tooth is now upright! Granted it isn't in its final position and is still behind the other teeth but thats improving and my spring looks far less tight as the teeth have pushed apart! Its amazing the changes already. I think i'll post pictures before my adjustment in 4 weeks time.

I also have an appointment in a week but its only to see how I'm doing with braces and cleaning etc. (Kind of hoping that my progress will be so fast I'll get a new wire instead but we'll see, especially looking forward to having my last tooth bracketed) The ortho phoned me the other day to check up too which was nice. My boyfriend had my phone and basically said I was fine which was probably just as well because I hit a bit of a roadblock a few days ago and pretty much cried all weekend and hated my braces and would have probably begged to get them off a couple of days ago even though now I'm feeling much better. Has anyone else had a few days like that? My teeth still ache but I'm pretty used to that now and its not really surprising given the movement I'm seeing. Feeling a bit sad about the food I'm finding harder to eat but I've forund a lipbalm that tastes like lemon curd tarts! Yummy!

Plus I've just done my tax return and get 20% of the price of my braces (and wisdom teeth extraction) back from the government! Thanks Julia! Its a great tip for Aussies who have braces to check to see if they can claim tax back for braces too!

[starfish88]

Going to the ortho tomorrow to check how I'm doing with braces. This isn't meant to be a wire change but the wire I have now is pretty straight so I guess we'll see. Torn between not wanting the pain to start up again, it still hasn't completely gone away, and wanting to change wires to speed the process up so its over sooner. I'm also terrified to see how well I've been doing with brushing etc. I always get stressed before dental appointments but I'm so scared my brushing won't be good enough and I'll get yelled at. Its kind of irrational, since I've been brushing up to 6 times a day, but my childhood dentist once yelled at me because I had an impacted adult tooth so I always feel on my gaurd. I got really unwell last night and had a high fever but it had gone by this morning so I can only assume its stress.

[starfish88]

The visit to the ortho was great! Just saw the assistant to check that everything looked good. She said my teeth were really clean so my brushing and waterpiking must be ok even if my flossing is still really difficult. She said there was no tartar at all around any of my front teeth where a lot of people get it. Yay! Just a little bit of tartar around the tooth that isn't bracketed yet but nothing bad at all. Especially some of that may have accumulated when I couldn't brush really well when i had my wisdom teeth out. I have a hygenist appointment on the 14th August anyway a week before my next ortho appointment. Going to aim to book every 16 weeks which is between 3 and 4 months and will fit in as having a clean before every 2nd ortho visit since I'm going to be on 8 week visits at least for the next year or so.

I also got elastics at this visit! She got me to bite together and I had about 3 places my teeth sort of fit together where a few of them touch so since my bite is so crazy anyway we may as well make it more crazy with some elastics! I had been hoping for something new, so I'm happy even if I'm still on my first wires for another 4 weeks. I got quail elastics which are so tiny! I also got a bag of foxes for when i'm done with the 2 bags of quails. I'm really surprised how tiny the elastics are. I was thinking the big elastic bands you use in the office! But i got them in really quickly. The assistant got me to try infront of a mirror but I didn't want to go into how I don't/can't look at my teeth so just put them on by touch. She checked and said that was fine. Since the bottom hook is really far back doing it by touch seems easier anyway. Normally I clench my teeth at night, can't see how that can happen with these in! I'm really excited to be working on my overjet already too. I can't wait to see some big changes.

I'm slightly scared to get my wire changed though. Any reassurance its not going to hurt like braces on?

[starfish88]

Elastics took a bit of getting used to but much easier than getting braces. They scratched up one side of my cheek pretty badly but that was the side that didn't get too scratched from brackets so I guess that side wasn't as tough. If it wern't for the scratches I wouldn't notice or care that I had the elastics in. Its so exciting how much it feels like new braces with all the movement going on again! The elastics are also really easy to ping into place. I forgot to ask my ortho if I'm allowed to drink with them in. It seems a waste to take them out for a glass of water so I have been keeping them in - thats ok right? I've given up sugary stuff mostly so thats not an issue. I feel like my voice seems a bit muffled with all this stuff in my mouth but no one seems to notice. I work with kids so they would be pretty honest if I did sound different.

I still have quite a fear of teeth and I still struggle to look at my own teeth at all (I get grossed out - I'm strange, I know) but I caught a glimpse of my front 6 teeth and they are all the same length now! Its amazing - it made me feel so happy my braces are working. Plus being able to look at my teeth is something I'm going to start working on - after my next check-up and clean i'm going to make myself look at my teeth and believe they arn't gross (hopefully)!

[starfish88]

So I had my first cleaning with the dental hygenist with my braces. It didn't hurt like I was expecting it to since my teeth are still a bit tender with the elastics. I also got a dental check-up and they said my teeth actually look really good and the few issues they noticed (wear on a couple of teeth, gum loss on the front and some occlusal issues) are all things they expect the braces to fix anyway. Makes me glad I got braces though to fix thosed things. They said not to worry that I can't brush the crooked tooth as well yet as probably by my next cleaning it will be where its meant to be anyway and not an issue anymore. A bit of a relief not to have to worry!

I have to go back in 16 weeks for another clean (this fits well with my 8 week ortho appointments) and so I've booked in for just before Christmas so I can enjoy my holiday not stressing about my teeth. I don't have to have a check-up until the appointment after that (like 8 months time!) so i'm even happier about that. Plus the dentist and hygenist are both big fans of the waterpik! Yay

[starfish88]

First adjustment! It didn't hurt at all as badly as I was expecting it to. I took paracetamol with codeine (the weak pharmacy ones not the good ones from my wisdom teeth - none left) 1/2 an hour before hand which I'm sure helped and I've probably got used to the pain and it doesn't bother me so much now. It also helped that psychologically I know they aren't going to slip and pull teeth out no matter how much it feels like they might when they are opening the doors!

So I'm now on a 0.16 on the top but kept the 0.14 on the bottom for another 8 weeks because that still has a lot of work to do. They put more spring on the lower too to make even more room for the wonky tooth so hopefully that will come up a bit more too before they change the wire there. He also said my elastics are going great - my overjet has come in from 11.5 or 12mm (I got 2 different measurements on 2 pre-braces appointments - but suffice to say its a lot!) to 10mm. OK thats still a lot but its down maybe 2mm in 4 weeks, which if it continues to move at that pace will mean its no longer a medical problem at my next adjustment (8 weeks time) and will be in the 'normal' range some time around Christmas! OK I'm not expecting it to move that fast for the whole time but its nice to hope. He did say if it stopped moving we could extract 2 upper pre-molars and it wouldn't affect my face shape. He actually said he had a dream about it which was a bit odd! Hee Hee I'm confused though because he didn't want to do extractions at the start (when I could have got them done under sedation with my wizzies) but now its an option? I'll go for it if he reccomends it because both my boyfriend and sister had extractions and look fine and I trust him to make the right decision but it will mean another $500 to $1000 because there is no way I'll be able to do this without sedation.

But on the plus side it means they expect to fix my overjet possibly up to 100%! Without surgery. OK, it will never be as great as if I had the surgery but it will make me feel great to know the overjet is gone. He said he didn't want to get my hopes too high at the start but my teeth are co-operating so far! I also found out that I have no molar bands in my treatment plan (hurray! but as he has said treatment plans always change!) but I'll be getting brackets on 3 of my last molars next time. they'll not bracket the 4th one yet as that doesn't have to move so much and its not worth the pokey wires in the back if it can be moved later. I'll also go up to bear elastics next time and will get a packet of the regulars and a packet of the pretty colours. (My ortho doesn't have colours in the foxes). So all exciting news and I'm looking forward to seeing what this new upper wire does.