I definitely listened to all the advice from those who have gone through this before me - plenty of water to be hydrated, but paid a visit to the restroom before getting started. Lots of lip-balm, and salt water rinses have also helped. The lip spreaders weren't so bad, although my mouth and jaw did get a little tired of being open for such a long time! I also had this strange thing to bite down on, which caused a couple of gags, but nothing too bad - my husband, bless him, has quite a hilarious photo of me in sunglasses, lipspreaders and trying to keep warm under my blanket (my polar bear of an ortho keeps his rooms fit for the artic!
)The etchant and glue stuff was a little bitter tasting, but nothing too bad. My husband stayed and watched the lower bands and a couple of brackets go on, took some rather amusing photographs of me, and then departed for the nearby Best Buy to amuse himself whilst I got finished up. I have a .12 wire on the bottom and a .14 on the top, nothing too heavy at this stage. No elastics yet, I'm assuming not for a couple months now that we are moving ahead with a second RPE.
Without further ado - here is the photo :
So far it has taken me around twenty minutes to clean my teeth and floss, hopefully I will eventually improve on that time! I was shown how to clean and floss whilst I was still at the office, but its definitely not that easy for the first time. The brushing wasn't too bad, and I also have some inter-proxy brushs for getting between the archwires and cleaning the brackets nicely. Flossing was definitely the hardest part...
I usually use those little bits of floss that are on a stick, much much easier than trying to work with a piece of string! However, that is no longer an option (except for the back teeth on my uppers
) I bought some of this Oral B Super Floss, the stuff thats stiff, fuzzy and then floss. Its pretty tricky stuff though, but I've found that coming down through the archwire somewhat easier than going up. I hope this flossing lark becomes easier with time!
So far, no pain - and my husband took me to the Olive Garden for dinner tonight. I managed to bite into the breadsticks just fine, and managed a meal of Pasta with no problems. I'm definitely eating slower, but with cutting everything up real small, it wasn't too much of a hassle. I did however give up the after dinner mint, chocolate just isn't appealing at the moment. I had my dentakit, and was able to clean up easily after the meal. I think thats quite an accomplishment, eating in a restaurant on my first day with braces!
But definitely uncomfortable! I'm sure it will surpass over the next couple of days, but my one lateral is really agitated over that bend in the archwire!
