Metal Mouth Message Board

I decided to finally post here since I'll be getting braces in 6 days!
Just to introduce again, I am 22 and I have a 3 year old son. (He's almost potty trained! ) I have been wanting braces for a long time and finally have the means to get them. (Wow, and I noticed that I first joined this board in Dec. '06!...thats a looonnggg time) Financial things, family and other crazy stuff kept happening and my appt. and b-day kept getting pushed back further and further. I was really upset at first and I almost gave up getting them because of this.
When I was about 11 my first bicuspid on the top right was taken out to make room for my eye tooth to move down. My parents didn't really have any money to take me to the ortho, and my teeth slowly drifted towards the space. (I don't blame them or anything, but I'm just happy to be getting if fixed.)
My midline is off by 7mm, and to even things out I got my 2 first bicuspids extracted (1from top left, 1 from bottom right ) and my second bicuspid extracted from bottom left. I have moderate crowding with Class I left and Class 3 right (slight crossbite) So I look pretty crazy right now and will post pictures when I get my braces on, so everyone else will know exactly what I'm talking about.
I'm so excited to be FINALLY getting this done, after all the work (fillings, extractions) Estimated treatment time is 24 months.

This week seems like it is going so slow!


Lana

Good Luck Lana on your b-day, I have a 3year old son also and he is finally potty trained he makes 4 in June.

I got my braces on about 30 minutes ago! SO far it feels weird and i've put wax in the places that are rubbing a little bit, that way it doesn't get too bad over the next couple of days. It feels a little tight, but really not uncomfortable or anything. (Right now) I'm hoping that it stays that way. I asked the nurse about any reactions and she told me that she has only seen 2 ppl have allergic reactions, but I'm freaked out about it anyways....I'm so paranoid of reactions and side affects its ridiculous.
I was talking to ppl all week about what color ligs I was going to get and guess what....i got the self litigating (sp?) brackets! Go figure...
I like them, and I can get the colors anyways at the next appt.
I got a little travel packet, similar to the dentakit stuff, so I was excited about that.

So thats it for now, other than I'm REALLY hungry and can't eat anything for 3 hours.


Lana

Hi Lana,

How are you feel now? I hope its not too bad. I'd take some otc meds before bed time. Thats when my braces started to really hurt last month on my b-day. Use as much wax has you need.

For a few hours it really wasn't too bad, (at first it was that feel-good-bite-down-kinda pain...though I wasn't biting down)(sorry if that sounds weird) but around dinner time (8 hours later) I started to feel pretty sore, so i took some advil right after i finished eating. Now I feel great! It looks like I'm just wearing wax right now..hehe. I picked up some extra wax, so i've been using a pretty moderate amount. I can feel some places in my mouth that are a little scratched up, but hopefully nothing too bad. I was going to post a pic, but my camera went dead when I tried to turn it on, so it'll have to wait until tomorrow so I can buy some more batteries.


Lana

Oh yeah I really didn't go into too much detail on the whole thing...:

When I got to the office I was sent in within 5 minutes and sat down in the chair. They lean it SO far back! They looked over my teeth and chose the brackets they were going to be using. They then sent me to brush my teeth with some cool grainy toothpaste (same as what the dentist uses when cleaning) I felt a little uncomfy b/c I don't like to brush my teeth in front of strange people, but I got over that pretty quickly since I wasn't the only that had to do it! I got back the the chair...again SO far back and the assistant used a rubber lip separator thing (which was completely uncomfortable...it kept rubbing under my lips too much) She got the etchant and glue on my bottom teeth without a problem and the ortho placed the brackets and set them. Then when she got to the top the separator got really uncomfortable (with my wiggling around it finally popped out of my mouth. She sat me up and told me to go rinse really fast with lots of water-which by the way was REALLY freaky! I was thinking something was wrong..so it was kinda scary. I got back and
she put the glue on and the ortho placed those brackets and set them. It was really fast and yet I was nervous throughout the whole thing!
When we got to the archwire about to be placed I finally asked if I could pick the colors (I thought they were just not going to ask me) and thats when I found out I had the self litigating brackets.
I have a couple of springs in, though 2 of them I'm completely wondering of their purpose since the can be moved side to side along the archwire. (one is over extraction gap, so I'm wondering if they put in the wrong spring there?...since they are supposed to be closing that gap instead of opening it up) I'm confused I didn't realize it until afterwards and I'll be sure to ask questions next time and won't be so shy about it.

It was all a really great experience and I'm happy that I'm on my way!

Lana

Hi Lana,

I'm glad to hear that everything went well. It's a great feeling to get started, isn't it? Good luck

LS

congrats on getting braced! are there any pics you can put up of your newly braced teeth so we can watch the progress?

I know EXACTLY what you mean! My initial appointment went so smooth and fast, I didn’t realize what happened until I was out the door. I’m not going to be shy either at my first adjustment. In fact, I made of list of questions to ask – if I don’t find the answers on AW first.

Good luck with your progress and welcome to AW. Take pictures – you’ll be amazed.

It's been a while since I updated any info. I can't believe I've had braces on for 6 months now. I stopped visiting the board for a little while. I never posted my pics. I actually deleted them because I was so embarrassed over how crazy my teeth looked. Now I feel like an idiot.
Overall, my bottom teeth have made the most progress, the top just seems to be exactly the same as before. I'm still wearing the same wire on top that was origionally placed. The bottom wire has been changed twice. My extraction gaps are still there, though I can see where my teeth have closed it a little. I WILL post pics this time. Hahaha. My next appt is next week!
Oh, I have the damon brackets and two months ago I got some colored ligatures put on for fun. Has anyone else had the feeling that they don't get clean enough?

Hi Lana!

Glad to hear your teeth are moving well, your uppers will catch up very soon I'm sure of it!

Can't wait to see progress pics!

Hey Lana, looks like we got braced around the same time. Time is really flying huh??8)

Try to keep us updated with your progress & pics

So update on me: I haven't really had much progress on the top arch... Though, the bottom is going a little better. Really not a huge amount of progress, though the ortho said by the time i go in next time it will be a huge difference. (6 weeks from now) A couple of days ago i finally got all my teeth braced. There were two on the bottom front that had been left out. I had to have springs to space out the front, but I feel i'm finally going to make some progress now that all my teeth are braced. I FINALLY decided to stop being so scared and post some pics. I'm really embarrassed, but I would really like to keep track of how i'm doing. Every time I took pics before I would erase them, and now I don't have anything to compare with.
So here are my funky teeth..
Lana




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Hey Lana! Glad you finally got up the courage to post your pics They are going to look so nice when they're done, for sure!! I don't really worry about posting teeth pics because no one can see my face which makes me feel 100% better about it. Maybe I'll take a nice smiling face shot when I'm all done and the teeth actually look good.

Congrats on getting all of those teeth into the braces; I'm sure now you'll start seeing a lot of progress like your ortho said. It will be exciting to be able to compare these pics with the ones after your next adjustment in 6 weeks! I also wish I would have taken more pics during treatment. I don't have any of me before braces, I have a couple from my first month in braces, and then no more until 11 months in, which was just recently. I really wish I had a "before" pic with no braces, that would be really nice to compare with an "after" pic with no braces, but oh well.

Keep us updated and I'm really looking forward to seeing your next progress pics