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Well my ticker says that I'm 3 years and almost 10 months into the process. Yesterday, after looking at my teeth for a long time, my ortho said that my case was no longer progressing, and I needed to choose between getting a new set of lingual braces or a set of standard braces. I've been wearing buttons on the fronts of my teeth for nearly three years now, so I've often wondered why exactly I got linguals. The decision for me was easy- standard braces to finish it out.
My ortho said that in the four years since I got my iBraces, the company had been bought out by 3M, and the technology has advanced quite a bit, but that my older technology system had pretty much reached it's best potential. While he had been able to manually tweak the wire in a few areas, the super tiny spaces between the teeth in the lower front were simply too small to allow for such manual adjustments.
So next week I'll go in on my 38th birthday to get my upper and lower arches wired. I'll have clearish on top and metal on bottom.
I had my top arch wired for 3 years, 9 months, 3 weeks and 3 days with iBraces
I had my bottom arch wired for 3 years, 8 months, 1 week, and 4 days with iBraces
with Clarity conventional brackets top and bottom
I should tell you that the process of removing the brackets and buttons from my teeth was very traumatic. First he removed the brackets using some sort of a special tool. Due to the fact that my gums had basically grown around several of the brackets, this was easier said than done. After they were all removed, they all came out as one with the arch wire still attached. After that, he had to get the buttons off my teeth. This part was particularly horrible. Some of the buttons were metal, some were formed from glue, but each of them felt like he was crushing the tooth as he pulled them off. It sounded horrendous, and felt bad too. The worse was yet to come, as he had to grind the glue off the teeth where the buttons and brackets were. By this time my gums were fully inflammed, and in order the grind the glue, the gums were damaged too. That one tooth in the front that has always stuck out more than the others was particularly painful during this process. After 15 mins or so, I was freed to go brush and rinse. It looked like someone had died in the sink with all the blood that came out of my mouth. Quite disgusting.
I needed to get my teeth cleaned by my dentist ASAP before they put the new braces on, so they called while all this was going on and got me a slot for the next day. Of course that was not enough time for my mouth to recover, so my cleaning was very painful too. I went and bought some sensitive toothpaste to hopefully help my teeth calm down. My gums are still puffy and red, so I haven't really been able to enjoy having my braces off. It is nice however not having to worry about all the debris stuck in my teeth after eating!
I had my top arch wired for 3 years, 9 months, 3 weeks and 3 days with iBraces
I had my bottom arch wired for 3 years, 8 months, 1 week, and 4 days with iBraces
with Clarity conventional brackets top and bottom
So I got my new conventional braces wired up early this week. It was amazing once all the brackets were in place along with the archwires it made it dramatically visible how unaligned my teeth were after nearly 4 years of linguals. A rather thick NiTi wire was put in place, and it quickly got to work aligning my teeth. I got Clarity brackets in clear/white on both top and bottom, so they are fairly unobtrusive. They are actually more comfortable than the multitudes of sharp buttons that I had placed on the front of nearly every tooth. They are much smoother than the buttons, plus they have the arch wire there to guide the lips across the bracket. I took some photos the first night that I had them that I will have to post. The teeth have moved quite a bit already and some of the visible misalignment is already gone. This makes me hopeful that I'll soon be done with braces entirely!
I had my top arch wired for 3 years, 9 months, 3 weeks and 3 days with iBraces
I had my bottom arch wired for 3 years, 8 months, 1 week, and 4 days with iBraces
with Clarity conventional brackets top and bottom
Well, I am now within a month of getting my braces off! When I went for my most recent appointment, they sectioned the wire on the bottom, so now it's only on the middle 6 teeth. The back teeth are free to float, and I'm wearing these super-long bands to connect all the top and bottom back teeth together. It goes on three teeth on the top and three on the bottom! It's an "Ostrich" elastic.
At my next appointment it will all come off, and I'll get fitted with a permanent bonded retainer for the bottom teeth and a nightguard retainer for the top teeth. It's been over 4.5 years now- way too long! I'm sure it would have been at least two years shorter if I had just gone with conventional braces from the beginning.
I had my top arch wired for 3 years, 9 months, 3 weeks and 3 days with iBraces
I had my bottom arch wired for 3 years, 8 months, 1 week, and 4 days with iBraces
with Clarity conventional brackets top and bottom
