Finally braced 3/16/10 (pics)

[fosterp]

So the day has finally come and gone and I almost chickened out with a few days left but my girlfriend kept convincing me it was the right thing to do. To sort of recap how the banding procedure went I'll give some details for anyone that is about to get braced themselves.

Showed up at 8:25 am for my appointment. I had to fill out some last minute paperwork about the financial arrangements and then sign the informed consent. The lady gives me the papers and says to just initial in the three places and sign. So I start reading it, and then rude lady says again 20 seconds later, "you can just initial it" (umm ok this is all the bad stuff that might happen don't you think I should read what im signing?)

Anyway I am put in the chair and the assistant sand blasts my teeth with some nasty feeling stuff, and then uses some kind of rough cleaner thing that kind of hurts the gums cause it goes way up in there, and my gums started bleeding like crazy. Thought it was signs of bad hygiene but I guess it happens to everyone. The doc came over and did some really nice cleaning up on the edges of my teeth with the drill to make them nice and smooth since my teeth were really rough on the edges. He then drilled a hole on the side of my steel crown on the right side in order to have a place to bond a bracket to. Weird I know, but I am also weird for having a steel crown in the first place.

The worse part about getting the brackets on are the things they put between your lips and gums to hold them open while they bond the brackets, it can start to hurt especially when the doc starts pulling your lips apart even FURTHER. The other thing to watch out for is if you have porcelain crowns they have to use some special bonding chemicals which have a very strong chemical smell, and your nose is right there so its almost like smelling rubber glue except you can't just turn your head away to breathe lol.

Also they put bite turbos in my mouth - I was expecting the ones bonded to the back of the top incisors but instead they placed these molar buildups on my back teeth. It is basically just some synthetic material that is about half the width of my molar cusp and are about a half inch off the tooth.

The total time in the chair took about 2 hours, at which point the assistant put the wires in my mouth, she seemed very skillful compared to some of the stories I've heard about damon brackets when the assistants had a terrible time getting the doors closed. I got a huge binder full of reading material on stuff to do and the policies of the office. Interestingly, during my consults they said theres a staff member on call 24/7 to answer any questions and they can get someone to the office to fix something it if breaks even on weekends. Then now that I have given them my money, their little book says only call in cases of extreme emergencies, and of course loose brackets, broken wired, etc, are not reasons to call, and you have to call during normal business hours to have it fixed. Go figure.

Overall the feel of the brackets isn't too bad. They don't seem "too big" as a lot of people say, maybe its cause I already had big teeth. There was no pain initially, but about 8 hours later now my front teeth are pretty sensitive, as well as the side with elastics. I don't really have any difficulty talking, only a slight lisp on some words, my girlfriend can't really notice any difference.


Eating with bite turbos is ridiculous. I gave up trying to actually chew anything - the combination of sensitive teeth plus the fact that none of my teeth can touch except for the molar buildups - make it pretty impossible. I am sticking to protein shakes and soft stuff I can just swallow from now on.

This picture for some reason makes my teeth look a lot worse than they seem to look in a mirror, perhaps the lighting, but my crossbite makes my entire jaw appear extremely crooked, but part of that is because the turbos are sort of pushing my jaw over to my left more so than the way my teeth closed naturally before. I've got two springs, one between my top incisors which is going to push them out from each other, and one between my left lateral and left first bicuspid, in order to make room for the canine to move forward.

I'm going to be getting a real camera soon so hopefully I can get some better pictures soon to track my progress.


By demoniclizard at 2010-03-16

[Bellalalala]

CONGRATS!!!!

The first week is the hardest to adjust to, but after that it's smooth sailing!
Hopefully you'll come to love your braces like a lot of us do!

Definitely take pictures.
My biggest regret is not taking a ton of before pictures from all different angles to compare before and after. I only have a few pics from over a month into treatment when there was already movement.

[jambo532]

congrats. Yeah i agree about the first couple days being the hardest. After that it's really not that bad. I've adjusted pretty well. Hardly even notice them now... except for when I eat and get food stuck all in my grill haha.
www.allbraced.blogspot.com

[Pattyb]

If you can make it through the next week or so you will be in good shape. Those first few days were horrible for me because the insides of my mouth were just getting torn up with the metal. I really, really had second thoughts about getting braces. It took me about a month before I really felt comfortable with them.

Good luck to you and hang in there!

[graciesmom]

Congrats ! I feel your pain about the turbo bites...I have these too and that's the worst part for me so far...so frustrating that noe of my teeth touch It will get better....I am around a week and a bit in..and like an above poster at first I had second thoughts too..but I have gotten a little more used to them everyday!

[fosterp]

Just an update to my braces situation, its been two and a half months and I just had my first "adjustment" two days ago. My original post had a pretty crappy quality picture, but I did take some better quality ones a couple days after getting braced, just never bothered to post them - but here they are for comparisons sake.

3/18/2010:



And today... (5/28/2010)





The biggest change I see is in my lower incisors - they have really straightened out a lot. My upper incisors also have shown a large amount of improvement. The more my teeth straighten though the more obvious the asymmetry between the left and right sides of my jaw appear. You can really see the slant in the archwire. Its hard to picture how the braces alone are going to fix the clear jaw growth differences. Will the teeth on my right side really be pushed that far forward? Also what is probably hard to see is the elastic have really done a lot on fixing the crossbite on my left side. The ortho says right now they are about tip to tip, and hopefully next visit I will be able to be finished with the rubber bands.

My first adjustment was a pretty painful experience. All of my teeth are still hypersensitive to any kind of pressure - and the force used to open and close the damon bracket doors and push the archwires in just caused a great deal of pain. So not only were my teeth hurting before, they were kind enough to stick in a stronger wire this time! My ortho was surprised that my teeth were still hurting, and said only about 1 in 10 adult patients experience constant pain after the initial few weeks. Seems I always have bad luck with my teeth! Apparently this time they are really going to put the spring into action between those three teeth on the lower right to try and bring that one forward so I can expect those teeth to be in more pain as well. Sucks because those are the teeth I was really relying on to chew my food


So to recap the last two months - The first week or so I was pretty sore and was taking vicoden to relieve my pain (I sort of like painkillers too much). After that it wasn't too much other than my two front teeth being too sensitive to really bite anything. I was limited to eating stuff that I could put in my mouth and chew with the back teeth. The molar buildups didn't take too long to get used to chewing with, but its still kind of annoying not being able to close my teeth all the way - I kind of walk around looking like a funny mouth breather since my mouth has to wrap so far around my teeth just to close. I have had a lot more problems recently though.

A couple weeks ago I noticed my lower right incisor (tooth #25) was kind of numb to feeling and I did an icecube test to see if the tooth had any feeling - sure enough it didn't respond to any amount of cold. I checked it out with my dentist and sure enough the nerve inside the tooth had died. As to why it died its not easy to tell - the tooth had a filling in it, although it was not too big. Could the pressure from the braces have cause the nerve to die? Neither my dentist or ortho would give a direct answer to that question which leads me to assume it could have been the reason. So just a warning to anyone getting braces that already have big fillings in their teeth.

So their plan was to medicate the tooth until next year in which my insurance rolls over to do the root canal, but go figure the tooth (which caused me no pain before) flared up AFTER being medicated - I woke up that night in a ridiculous amount of pain. It felt as if my gums were being stabbed by a knife. So I had to go back and pay out of pocket for a root canal and as soon as they opened up the tooth, in the words of the dental assistant "that is the most amount of pus I have ever seen come out of a tooth." Nasty!

Even after the root canal procedure, my entire lower arch was just in constant pain, still today I am constantly taking painkillers. Healing from a root canal is bad enough - healing from one while going through initial orthodontic movement is just a pain multiplier. The funny thing is my lower teeth were never really "that" sensitive in the first month or so until this infection flared up - and now it seems as if every tooth just wanted to start moving after the infection started healing. Its aggravating not being able to tell if my pain is from the braces or if there is an infection that still needs to be addressed.

[KatieGee]

i love the last/sixth picture. you can really see how your upper arch is straightening out beautifully! congratulations!! and thanks for posting the pics, it's such great inspiration to see the improvements in other members' teeth, especially for people like me who have just been braced.

[Kimbo416]

I could not stop saying "wow" after seeing the last pic in each set of pictures. that upper arch is really coming together and so quickly too. I agree that it gives me a real inspiration to get though the pain of the first few weeks knowing the end is so rewarding (only day two for me fully braced lol)

looking good!

[yoginbraces]

I hope you are feeling better.

[alimommy1]

Are you feeling better yet? I can't believe the difference in the pictures, that is amazing!

[fosterp]

I went in for the second appointment of the root canal and the tooth was indeed "still" infected so he left it yet again putting in more medication and see how it goes in two weeks. It felt a lot better about 5 days ago right after they cleaned and put medicine inside the tooth, however I can feel pressure building up yet again under the tooth. I have no idea how an infection can keep returning and I have a bad feeling this is going to continue causing problems down the road. I have had four root canals in my life and not one has yet to be completely successful. First one ended up being extracted anyway since a crown was never put on (my fault), two molars on my left that still to this day don't feel right (can't bite anything hard with them) and now this.

My dentist said something awhile back when commenting on all my dental problems saying that it seems to be something inherited as both my mom and my sister have seen this dentist forever - me and my sister since we were kids, and between the three of us we have probably financed all his childrens' college education.

[fosterp]

Another update:

I've just had my second wire change, about 4 months in. Again the opening and closing of the damon brackets is pretty painful on sensitive teeth, and this case was no exception. The good news is I finally got rid of the bite turbos, the bad news is without the turbos on none of my back teeth touch now because of the way the fronts have moved, and this has brought to the front the problem with my midline. I now have to wear an elastic that goes right across the front of my teeth! It looks pretty goofy, and my job requires talking to customers all day, so I have yet to see how its going to play out. They want me to wear it 24/7 but I am starting to think I might have to create my own schedule. Just the simple act of talking and opening my mouth tugs painfully on the teeth.

A teeth cleaning coincided with my wire change today, and the hygenist at the dentist office wasn't happy with me. Apparently I've been doing an incredibly crappy job cleaning my teeth all over - its obvious when they removed my wire for cleaning there was a noticable darker "stained" line going straight across all of my teeth. Fortunately the cleaning got rid of most of it and the ortho didn't see any permanent calcification. "four times a day" is what they want me doing.

My crossbite is finally corrected enough to make my ortho happy, which is why I am free of the turbos, but I am still wearing one of the elastics in the far back I guess since the molar didn't move as much. The unfortunate result of the elastic correction is that my lower left teeth are tipped in an incredible amount, it looks funny and has made my cheek sort of lose support on that side. But the dr assured that later when I start getting rectangle archwires its going to push all the teeth back out a lot.

3/18/2010:



5/28/2010



Today



The big changes in the last two month - my lower right canine (lower left in pic). It moved about halfway from where it was to where it needs to be. The tooth was initially tied with its own wire to the main wire, and its now fully engaged to the wire. My front two top teeth sadly have not moved at all since last update, presumably because the top needs to start gaining overall width before there will be room.

The gap between the top and bottom arch on my left side has closed considerably, mainly from the bottom canine moving upwards.

Finally the second molar on my back right that has its friend in front missing has finally joined the party in the form of a big spring. This is to correct the tipping that has occured over the last 3 years when the tooth in front was removed.

You can see the two brackets in front that have the two anchors as the placement for my front elastics, had to take them off to get good pictures.

Other than that, there isn't too many other changes I can really see. They have been a lot of changes in the last few months, but the more problems I see starting to become fixed, the more problems I start to notice that need fixing. In general the teeth have smoothed out to be one curvy arch rather than zig zagging everywhere, but the shape of said arch is totally whack. The more my teeth become aligned and leveled, the more obvious the the huge jaw growth discrepancy becomes

[KatieGee]

Wow I love your pictures! I just braced my bottom row yesterday and the zig-zagging of the archwire really hit home how crooked my bottom teeth are. Your pictures made me feel so much better like I know there will be light at the end of the tunnel!

I'm am so excited I'm going to go take a bunch of pics now so that I can compare them to new ones in a couple of months. lol

Congratulations on your progress and thanks for sharing!

[fosterp]

Another wire change today. Unfortunately the great progress I experienced initially has sort of slowed. Big changes are the lower teeth on my right side. Canine is continuing to move inline with the rest of the arch, and the arch itself seems to be slowly rounding out to a more symmetrical shape. The lower right canine was rebracketed since it was in further need of rotation, and they also regressed back to a lighter wire on the lower arch for whatever reason, presumably to give it the proper amount of force for rotation. The spring was removed from the molar gap on the right side, since dr said a lighter wire would just pop off from chewing force on that side. The top progressed to a stronger wire, and the assistant said it was a rectangular rather than round wire, and she said I can expect to see some "zig zaggy" changes - whatever that means. So there should be some action on the top part finally.

My front incisors haven't really moved at all, they are still slightly tilted inwards. I had a lengthy discussion with my ortho about some things that I was unsure about my treatment, particularly trying to address my excessive vertical proportions. Thus far I always thought that my "big front teeth" and slight lip incompetence were due to downward growth of the maxilla, and I brought up the idea of using TADs to intrude my posterior teeth as well as anteriors. He agreed that it would definitely reduce my facial height, but one problem is that when you close a bite, you need to have some overbite to work with, otherwise you risk ending up with an edge-to-edge class underbite. He thinks its possible as treatment progressed there may be room to work with, in which case my idea might be a possibility.

One of the amazing things he did was rather than just sort of give me a short explanation, he actually pulled up all my x rays and profile pictures and sat and drew out a cephalometric diagram right in front of me, and demonstrated the various angles and how they would change with certain procedures. In my case, my maxillary proportions were normal, and it was actually the vertical proportions of the mandible that were off. Very weird, but apparently its probably an inherited thing.

Anyway heres the pictures:

3/18/2010:



5/28/2010



7/26/2010


Today

[TinGrin4460]

Hi All,
I am new to this board. I got my first set of braces yesterday. I am fifty years old and I also had partial dentures which pained a lot.
These post on this board have given me so much encouragement. I felt like people would laugh at me because I am wearing braces at my age, but I needed to do something about my dental health and my othro said this was the best option or else I will loose all my teeth and I don't want that to happen. So thank you all very much for your encouragement.