Just to give a brief synopsis of me, I'm a Twenty-something young professional and I've had my braces since September 7, 2006. I haven't taken that many pictures to document my progress, but I will definitely start so that others can be as impressed by the miraculous progress as I have been by looking at other pictures in this forum.
I do have a question for some of you vets...
Have you ever encountered a orthodontic tech that seems to have a little extra pain associated with his/her adjustment techniques?
Okay, there's this one tech at my orthodontist...the first time I encountered this individual was a few days after I got my appliances on. One of my brackets wasn't on securely and popped off (and the one beside it was loose). SO, when I went to get everything fixed, the tech went ahead and took both loose brackets off, and the orthodontist came and put them back in place. When she went on to dry them, she was so engulfed in conversation with me, she dried the wrong two. I was sitting there thinking, "Hey, that's not the right one
", but I figured that I had just gotten them on and had a lot going on in my mouth, so maybe I was wrong...Low and behold, when the tech was putting the bands on, the one that she didn't dry popped off...imagine how frustrating that was guys! I had just gotten them so my mouth was pretty sore, but to have to go through that twice...!!! SO, we went through the whole process again, and I tried to charge the experience to the tech being distracted with our conversation (I did appreciate the talking to keep my mind off the discomfort), so I thought nothing of it.The second incident was during my first adjustment. I ended up getting the same tech (I was beginning to think I was assigned to her!). So, she took all of the bands off, and my sis, who had just gotten braces off a couple of months ago and went to the same ortho, mentioned before I went that they usually let you brush after they take the bands off, but the tech went straight to putting a new set of bands on. So, the real problem came when the tech was putting the bands on my bottom teeth. My ortho issue was crowding and I had one tooth in the middle (on the bottom) that was back and a little higher than the others, so the wire had to be bent in to get the band on. The tech did all the bands from outside-in and got to the last one ("the" tooth) and realized after a few minutes of tugging, pushing, and pulling that she couldn't get the wire in to get the wire in and band on! So, she went and got the ortho who said that she could, she just needed someone to hold the wire down while she puts the band on. Ok, Great...as if this isn't frustrating enough
! SO, the tech goes and gets a more experienced tech and she had to take all the bands off of the bottom teeth that the other tech had already put on 
, then it took the new tech less than a minute to get everything back on (going from the inside-out this time 
). That experience along with the last one made me think that maybe I need to request another tech if that particular tech goes to grab my chart, what do you all think?Keeping in mind that the other three experiences I've had with other techs have been an "in and out of the chair" experience, minimal pain (including getting powerchains).
Any suggestions on how I can approach that situation?
I'm also trying to keep in mind that both experiences with that particular tech were at the beginning on my ortho treatment, so my teeth may have been extra sensitive (which may have magnified things).
Thanks for any comments/suggestions, and in the words of Eddie Murphy in Coming to America, "I'm very happy to be here!".
. Just trying to not feel apprehensive about going for my adjustments. Hopefully nothing like that will happen again.