Chantel's story - Week 12 comparison pics (pg. 7)

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#76 Post by **Chantel** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 5:07 am

I'm getting in a little early, but it's been 3 weeks tomorrow!! I honestly can't believe that time has gone that quickly! and I can't believe how normal my braces feel now, they really have become a part of my life that doesn't bother me and are doing a great job, the only time I really ever notice them these days is when friends of mine who haven't seen me in the last few weeks ask how it's going! amazing!

Easter has come and gone, and I'm still trying to clean up our chocolate bunny supply (whilst trying to keep low on the sugar intake as well) I think I may have to offload some of my goodies to some work friends! it was a great long weekend to unwind and felt like a mini holiday, I just need another (maybe more longer this time) holiday soon I think

I took some progress photo's of my two week mark, thinking that I wouldn't see that much of a difference and just wanted them for my records, but to my absolute astonishment, I have seen some slight movement in the top lateral incisor (thanks Karen for the teeth name pic) on the right hand side, so I'm really really stoked with that, and also my premolars and molars are starting to line up quite nicely as well. I might wait until my first adjustment until I make my next progress photo's, I dont want to overload you guys with too many pics! and hopefully there's even more movement by that time.

I'm hoping when I go in for my first adjustment that they put a bracket onto my pushed back lateral incisor on my left hand side, at the moment it's only getting pushed in with the aid of some dental floss that is tied around the archwire, and being held in the back of the tooth by a small button (which you can vaguely make out in some of my top arch pics from earlier) as I really want to get that moving and popping out into the world.

Food as always is a massive part of my day, and is getting much much better to eat, I'm getting really good at chopping up my hamburgers with a knife and fork, though it's not quite the same, it still tastes damn good! I've even ventued into some harder stone fruit (plums that are squishy but not *too* mushy) just cut up as well!

till next time

#77 Post by **Chantel** » Tue May 15, 2007 5:22 pm

Today is my first adjustment day..... it's finally here... it's been a very long 8 weeks

I have seen great movement in the last few weeks which is super, they've still been moving around even as the weeks have been going on. I've got small gaps between my lower lateral incisor and canine's on both sides, so it seems that the lower lateral and central incisors are starting to space themselves our quite nicely and aren't as crowded in there.

My upper lateral incisor on my left side has slowly been makings it's way into the world slowly but surely, and I'm hoping and praying that my ortho decides to put a bracket onto it this time, it's come out far enough so that if he did put a bracket onto it now it wouldn't hit onto the lower teeth *fingers crossed for that one*.

Also the tie wire that was holding that tooth onto the archwire snapped the other night whilst I was flossing. It was sweet relief, and also my ortho said not to worry about coming in to get it checked anyway, and it only happened Sunday, so I was fine with that and it doesn't look like there has been anymore movement in the wrong direction for it.

My appointment is at around lunchtime (Sydney Time) so will post an update and some pics when I get home tonight.

#78 Post by **Chantel** » Wed May 16, 2007 4:07 am

okay, so the first adjustment went reasonably well today I was hoping to get a few more things changed around, but was a bit disappointed. This is what happened:

The whole ortho practice seemed to be in a bad mood, not sure why, it was only lunchtime, maybe from hungry bellies. Anyway the ortho came over to me waiting in the chair and checked out my bite and got me to open and close my mouth a few times.

He said he was just going to change the top wire. I'm not sure why he didn't change the bottom maybe he could see that there was still a bit of movement left in the bottom archwire? I'm not too sure. So he did that, I think the new top wire is also slightly larger than the bottom, though I can't be sure, he also put a spring between my upper central and upper canine so that the spring could push those teeth away and make more room for me upper lateral incisor. he also kept the button on the back and just tied a bit more elastic thread around the back of the tooth and tied it to the front of the archwire (you can kinda make it out in the upper pics)

Comparison pics look great for that tooth, it has come a long way in 8 weeks, I just hope that in the next 6 weeks it will pop out even more with the aid of the spring in place. I'm quite happy with the progress of my bottom central's as well as they're really starting to spread out and make some room for themselves.

I was scheduled to go in on the 20th June but have prior work commitments so I had to reschedule it for a week later being the 27th. I was quite excited that they were looking at having me in within 5 weeks though, but I'm still happy with 6 weeks nonetheless.

Okay so here we go with the photo's (I've compared my Week 8 photo's with my Week 1 photo's as the pics I took on my first day are blurry and you can't really make them out as well as Week 1 pics).....

Week 1 Top

Week 8 Top

Week 1 Bottom

Week 8 Bottom

Updates again in 6 weeks!

#79 Post by **Chantel** » Sat Jun 09, 2007 1:41 am

ALOT has happened over the last few weeks and I've been itching to write about it on here, but I have come down with a very bad virus / cold over the last few days (I just got back to Sydney from holidays in sunny Queensland (north of Australia) so it wasn't a very nice way to see me back to my routine and work. So i've had the last few days off work and have been dosed up on antibiotics (yuck) and cold and flu tablets. But I'm feeling much better and hopefully by the end of this long weekend I shall be back and kicking.

Okay onto braces news.

My lost post spoke about how he had only changed the upper wire and put a spring in for my first adjustment. I then went on my holiday up to the sunshine to spend some time with my family. Towards the end of my holiday I noticed that the elastic tie he had used between the button at the back of my tooth to connect to the archwire had snapped on one side. So as soon as I got back to Sydney I made an emergency appointment to go in and get the elastic tie put back in.

In the meantime, this tooth (my upper lateral incisor) had moved increbily since my first adjustment and I could pretty much move that tooth to the normal position with ease.

So I get to my ortho office and the girls and my ortho were in a lot better mood than last time. They were joking around like usual and the office was full of laughs. I made my way to the chair and one of the assistants asked me to show her my mouth she was totally shocked with the amount of movement and said that they will definately put a bracket onto my incisor today (HURRAY!!!!!!) this is what i've been waiting for for so long, so I was really thrilled with that. The assistant told my ortho that this was just an emergency visit and that they should put a bracket onto the incisor, he agreed and placed it on, yippee!!

He then proceeded to replace my bottom archwire to a thicker wire (it doesn't feel as smooth as the top one and looks to be a darker kind of metal) the assistant then asked if she should make my next adjustment appointment for another 5 weeks, as my 2nd adjustment was not scheduled for at least another 3 weeks (so technically I got my 2nd adjustment a lot sooner than expected - not that I'm complaining about that

....) so all hooked up I left the office much happier in all than last time, and I have my 3rd adjustment booked in for the 11 July.

I'll try and post some pics of my increcible progress in the next few days when my throat is a little better and my head is with it. I'm just so happy that my pushed back incisor can now sit properly and in line with the other teeth and it's only been 2 and a bit months... i love braces......

#80 Post by **minlou01** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 2:34 pm

You've made some great strides Chantel! Please post some updated pics soon...it is so encouraging to see other's progress!

Cheers!

Min

#81 Post by **Chantel** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 12:48 am

Sorry it's taken so long to get these photo's on the board, but for some reason I couldn't log onto imageshack, it just wasn't loading properly, but I'm here now with some progress piccies:

Week 1 Top

Week 12 Top

Week 1 Bottom

Week 12 Bottom

Week 1 Front

Week 12 Front

So as you can see from the above pics I'm quite happy with the amount of movement that's been achieved in only 12 weeks, amazing! There is still quite a lot of tweaking that needs to occur, like the gap between my lateral incisor and canine on my bottom arch on both sides (left and right) but once those bottom central teeth fall into a better alignment then it will push them further along.

I had an appointment with my general dentist yesterday and he was absolutely stoked about the progress of the braces and kept telling me he couldn't believe how quickly it had all happened and he also gave me high praise for the condition of my teeth and that there wasn't much plaque etc on them. He then had the fun task of applying a flurouide treatment and then flossing, I think he thought he could get away without threading it through the wire, but that didn't work so he spent a solid 15 minutes threading the floss through and doing it the hard way, although he did do quite a good job considering he probably doesn't have to tackle that kind of task often.

Next adjustment on the 11 July and with that hopefuly some more tweaking and adjusting!