TuZZi's 18 years of waiting are finally over! -Update Jan 10

[TuZZi]

w00000000 I got braced on Wednesday Aug 31st! I only had to wait 18 years to get them on! YAY ME! haha

As you can see in the pictures, my main problem to fix is my severely protruding front tooth. It's been like that since I was 7 or 8 years old, as my dentist waited too long to pull my dead front baby tooth, after I fell into concrete stairs at the age of 4, and killed my tooth. So after he pulled the front tooth, my other adult teeth had started to come in, and there was no room for it, so it moved forward instead!

So I've had this funked tooth for 18 years, and with a mixture of my AWESOME genetics, I have a pretty screwed up mouth all around. Lots of crowding, and tons of crookedness make TuZZi an unhappy girl!

To make a long story short, I finally got them, it didn't hurt a bit getting the braces on, but I noticed my bite was off since my front tooth was hitting one of the brackets on the bottom, and causing me to have over half a centimetre gap between my uppers and lowers when I tried to close my bite. The assistant told me to come back later if it was too uncomfy, so I was back there after work to get the bracket taken off. It wasn't attached to the archwire anyways (8 of my teeth aren't actually!) so I thought it was no big deal to take the bracket off. Now my bite is better, but a different tooth is hitting a front bracket now, but my bite is closer together so it's a lot better than it was before.

The reason I have 8 teeth that aren't attached to the archwire is because 4 of my bicuspids are getting pulled in under a month, and 4 teeth in the front are so crooked, there's no possible way to have them attached right now without popping the wire right out constantly.

The only thing I'm not enjoying right now is the constant poking, and scraping of my cheeks and tongue. My upper bands are scraping my tongue, which was already banged up from a previous problem, so now my tongue is super-inflamed, and my cheeks are getting eaten up from the hooks. But alas, wax is my friend, and it's helping a little bit. I just wish I had perma-wax, that stayed on while I ate and slept.

Here are a couple of pictures to show my progress. Hopefully they won't make you blind

A month or so before braces:


A pretty side view of my most famous tooth:


An hour or so after getting them on:


Me being a dork:


Sorry the colour on the close-up shots suck.... our bathroom lighting isn't the greatest.

[jenstrom]

Congratulations on getting braces!! Good luck !!

[nahky]

Will be a great transformation. Keep us updated. Glad you started the journey like the rest of us.

Next time you take a photo, use natural lighting, like in the daytime at your window. i tried this and the colour is more natural.

[MadeIn1984]

It's great that you've started the transition! Having a healthy bite will probably lead to less problems down the road. I'm so excited for you and I know that you'll be satisfied at the end.

Good luck with everything! You're not alone on this journey!

[jennielee81]

YEAH for you!!!

I'm so glad you are taking care of this before your in your 40's!!

You look great...we're all feeling a little dorky here with our braces sometimes.

Keep us posted and ya, go outside to take your pix...they'll look AWESOME!

Jenn

[Dodger(UK)]

Hi Tuzzi - Well done on taking this all important first step to improving your bite and smile You should see some major changes soon, especially when you have your extractions, and more space is made for your teeth to move in. Keep us updated

[TuZZi]

The most remarkable thing just happened.... I FLOSSED BETWEEN ALL MY TEETH FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME.... EVER! It still hurt quite a bit, but at least the floss fits in there now.

I usually ended up just flossing my front teeth, since those were the only ones I could fit the floss between, even if it was the thinnest stuff out there. But now.... w0000 I could fit the floss between them all.

Maybe this improvement will make me want to floss more. I absolutely hated it before, and would barely do it a couple times a month before.

edit: ok I didn't actually floss between ALL my teeth, the ones beside my molar bands don't count... they are kinda glued together still. The ortho wasn't too careful with the glue.

[caryca]

welcome on board:-)

and yes you should start making a friend with a floss, they are great to keep us plaque free

[TuZZi]

Well.... half my head is frozen, I'm all gauzed up, and the taste in my mouth is NASTY! I'm glad I'm still frozen, or else the gauze would be making me gag.

So the extraction went incredibly quick, all the dentist did was grab onto the teeth and wiggle them out... he didn't need any extra tools or anything. It was really weird. The hard part was, I almost fainted from the anesthetic. I got 8 punctures, 4 on the bottom, and 4 on the top, and everything was fine until they were done with the needles and let me sit up for a few minutes. I felt like I was going to faint, turned completely pale, and had to fan my face with a magazine for a few minutes until one of the other hygeniests noticed me and asked me if I was ok. So they layed me back, put a cold cloth on my face, and turned a fan on me for 15 minutes.

It's a good thing I read things on this site, because my dentist didn't tell me anything about how to care for my mouth except that I could take the gauze out of my mouth 20 minutes after I leave. He didn't say rinse with saltwater, replace the gauze, sleep sitting up, or anything like that. He gave me the funniest look when I told him I couldn't swallow pills, and drilled me on that for a while.... I got so frustrated because I couldn't talk, and he kept asking me question after question about not being able to swallow pills. He eventually gave me a prescription for liquid tylenol with codeine, after talking to 4 people on the phone trying to figure out what he could give me.

It's a good thing even the receptionist can understand people all gauzed up and frozen, they just called to check up on me and see how I was doing. I guess I scared them enough earlier.... they've even scheduled me a half hour earlier for tomorrow so I'll have enough time to react to the anesthetic and have my freak out.

Oh yeah, and they gave me my teeth.... they're HUGE! If my bicuspids are that big, I'm in no hurry to see how big my wisdom teeth are!

[decisionmade]

Hi tuzzi, Well you got through it but am sorry you had some problems with the faintng etc..I am surprised you weren't given an information sheet on how to care for yourself at home after the extractions but am glad you were helped by some of the things you've read on this site:)..good luck with your continued treatment...oh and i too brought my tooth home although it seemed a ittle weird to do so but since it had been part of me for 34 years i just couldn't throw it away!..good luck to you!-oh and I was caeful to rinse VERY gently..just let the salt water trickle through..you wouldn't want to disturb the extraction sites...

[Guppie51]

Good luck and thanks for the really clear pics. Gee, extractions? Kinda makes me count my blessings as ive got big teeth, but enough room for em all. Good luck, in due time you will have a brand new smile!

[TuZZi]

Well today went a lot better than yesterday.... I didn't feel faint, didn't get hot n sweaty, or turn pale at all. I guess the trade-off for that, was the dentist had to actually YANK my teeth out today, and had to wiggle them a lot more than yesterday. It took twice as long to get them out today, than it did yesterday, but I didn't mind.... I felt a lot better about it today. The dentist did however, have to give me one more needle than yesterday, as it didn't freeze up as well as it should have.

So now, I have 2 more holes in my mouth, and the bleeding still hasn't stopped yet on the hardest to yank tooth, but it shouldn't take much longer. I did a rinse with Oral B Amosan rinse, and it tasted MUCH better than a salt water rinse. It still tastes salty, but with a lil bit of minty freshness thrown in.... and it foams up too.

So now that it's all over with.... I will delight you all with a pretty picture! haha yeah they are kinda nasty looking, but I cleaned them up as best I could.

[hannah164]

Wow Tuzzi!
Those are some pretty huge teeth! They look like the teeth I had pulled. Even some of my baby teeth had roots that big.
Good Luck wiht your recovery and treatment.

-Hannah

[TuZZi]

w00000 first adjustment today!! I'm now the happy owner of 4 bouncing baby springs and a lovely gagging T-Bar!! I got my archwire replaced with a stronger one, and the ortho twisted the new one around a bit to make it fit better. I got wire ties on a few brackets and I would suppose the springs are attached with them as well. The springs are between my molars and my bicuspids, right across where my extractions were.

I have a feeling I'm going to be using a WHOLE LOTTA wax this month, as the springs are already rubbing against my cheeks, and the corners of my mouth are raw already. I was also told I'd have to go back in 2 weeks or so to get my archwire trimmed because there will be a lot of movement that will shift the wire around! I was so excited when I heard that!

This T-Bar thing.... is making me gag every time I try to swallow and get the spit out of my mouth. Drinking anything sucks too, but surprisingly I just ate some mashed potatoes and it didn't bug me at all.

The funniest thing, when my ortho looked in my mouth for the fiirst time since I was braced, he said "Oh damn, they're still crooked!!" hahaha everyone in the office had a good laugh at that one, especially me. He said I'd have to give him 6 months to fix the back and side teeth, and then he'll work on straightening out the front ones. I replied with "I've had crooked teeth my whole life, I think I can wait another 6 months." haha

Anyways, I've lost over 10 lbs in a month of eating soft foods, and I don't see the end anywhere in sight. Hopefully the extractions will close up soon so I can kind of get back to eating somewhat normal. I'm sooooooooo sick of soup, mashed potatoes, pudding and yogurt.

Pictures to come later when I can take some good ones. I'm metallic green now!

[TuZZi]

BOOST!! Boost is my new favourite food. Well not really, but it's the best tasting thing that I don't have to make. That's pretty much the only source of multiple vitamins and minerals in my diet at the moment.