Let me introduce myself briefly, I'm 23 year (female) old student who is graduating in september.
English is not my mothertongue, so I hope you can all understand what I'm trying to explain here! But I think photo's will help clear everything up.
When I was younger (12 years?) I only had to have some braces to widen my upper arch that had to be adjusted every night. These were only attached to my upper molars. After that my ortho said I didn't really need regular braces but if my two 'little' front teeth bothered me I could, and then she would make them bigger after the treatment. But offcourse when you are 12 years old you dont want braces if you dont need them. And since my two 'little' teeth didn't really bother me I opted to don't have braces.
Everything went well until I was 18. That's when my teeth started to shift. Had to have my 4 wisdom teeth operatively removed. Unfortunately my teeth already shifted quite a bit. I was quit upset but it didn't bother me that much back then. I didn't want to get braces anymore. Didn't help that my boyfriend said I looked fine and that I shouldn't really get braces.
But over the years my teeth have shifted even more. To the point that I'm really not happy with the way they look. Also my bite has never been really good, I don't have any problems biting/chewing etc. But when I close my mouth I can feel that my teeth don't really fit well together.
That's when I decided to get something done. I was quite hesitant of getting regular braces because I will be searching for a commercial function after september. So I looked into invisalign and lingual braces. I decided to go for lingual braces because I think my problems are too big to be dealt with by invisalign. If I'm getting something done, I want to be 100% happy with the result.
I looked for an orthodontist nearby that offered lingual braces. She said that I definately need my upper 'small' front teeth enlarged, because this is part of the reason why my teeth have shifted. I'm quite mad at my precvious orthodontist now
My upper arch has to be widened a bit more also, and my lower yaw has to come forward a bit to reduce my small overbite/yet. Also my midline is abit off. So quite a bit of work ahead! She expected it to be from 1,5 years to maybe 2 years. She said it was quite difficult to put an estimate to it, because everyone reacts differently to a treatment and she didn't want me to be too focused on the estimated timeframe. But i'm still hoping it will be done in 1,5 years offcourse! Yesterday I had the moulds taken. And hopefully on July 14th my braces will be put on. She (orthodontist) mentioned that there is a slight delay in the manufacturing process, and that my braces MIGHT not be finished by my next appointment in july. I really hope this is not the case, I would like to have the summer (no work, only 1 exam) to get used to my braces. So that when I start job-hunting they won't bother my much anymore.
And offcourse, the sooner they are on the sooner I can see some results!
In the pictures you can see that my bottom teeth are quite crowded. My upper front teeth that stick out are the ones that need to be enlarged, to make everything fit together better.
Pictures:
It's quite terrifying to see your teeth so up close actually! I knew they were bad, but not this bad!
In person you don't really notice it that much, you only really notice the upper two front teeth that stick out..
