It describes perfectly how I feel about getting back on track with healthy teeth and getting braces! I'm going to document my story here 
Here's my background story! I am gonna spell it all out because I have learned so much and gotten so much encouragement from reading others' stories that I hope if someone finds this through google (the way I did!) the detailed info will help them. Sorry for the length but long-windedness is a character flaw of mine, lol.
For reference purposes I am 25 years old. I lived in a small town and went to an old-fashioned dentist growing up, a family dentist owned and operated by one older man with no cosmetic stuff or bells n' whistles. He was a great dentist and I went every six months for many years. I had cavities here and there and he would fill them and give me a new toothbrush and a coupon for a free ice cream at a nearby grocery store. (Ha!) I don't remember getting much advice or instructions on how to care for my teeth, but I was young and didn't have too many cavities so I didn't think much of it. Sadly, he died when I was 14 or 15. He was the nicest man and I remember him very fondly. He is probably the reason I have no dental fear or anxiety like a lot of folks.
After that, we went to a much more modern office with multiple dentists. This is where things started getting off track with my teeth. I liked the office fine - I heard some really good advice, like only drink soda with a meal because if you sip it throughout the day the acid will destroy your enamel. Did I take the advice? No, lol, but it was good advice. I was told to floss. Did I? No. I was told I had areas in between my teeth that weren't cavities yet but would probably become cavities if I didn't shape up. Did I shape up? No. My mom ended up having a really horrible experience with one of the dentists (something about a failed crown and multiple trips costing thousands of dollars) and decided never to go back, which meant I didn't go back. I was probably 17 or 18 by now and my mom found a new dentist through her church and started going there, but didn't schedule appointments for me, and I certainly didn't take it upon myself to schedule any. My dental care pretty much stopped here.
A few years later at age 20-21 I was having severe toothache so I went to my mom's dentist and we did a root canal and crown. Around the same time, one of my fillings on the other side (tooth #4, second premolar) chipped off a little bit. What I should have done was go get the filling replaced. What I did instead... was nothing. Absolutely nothing. For the next five years I did nothing, and I was too embarrassed (and broke) to go to the dentist to get it fixed. Little by little the tooth continued to break apart. The increased pressure caused tooth #5 (first premolar) to start to break, too. Eventually the back of tooth #5 and 3/4 of tooth #4 was gone and I had a giant hole I could stick my tongue in. You couldn't see it from the outside - I still had that part of the tooth left. But almost all the rest of the tooth was gone - the whole inside part of the gum was exposed. Obviously that exposed it to a ton of bacteria and it decayed rapidly. I would get toothaches every so often but would treat myself with ibuprofen and soldier on. I would think, "man I really gotta get those teeth fixed," but it never happened. I moved last year and planned to find a new dentist in my area but I hadn't yet.
When money got a little better a few months ago, around November, I made a plan to get the teeth fixed - I have an FSA through my job so during benefits enrollment I put $1500 into the account (my employer matches 1/3 so I put in $1000 pretax over 26 paychecks and they put the remaining $500. I get the full balance on January 1 though). I also get tuition reimbursement which was approximately $1200 last semester so I was planning to use that money to get the teeth fixed and then my FSA would pay me back. Embarrassingly, when I got the tuition reimbursement I needed it for new tires so my car could pass inspection and to pay delinquent personal property taxes so I could reregister my plates.
So Jan 1 rolls around and I still haven't done anything about my teeth. Life goes on, I start a new semester of school and am my usual busy self. The last week of February I get another toothache. I dose myself up with ibuprofen and think, "man, I really gotta get those teeth fixed," and go about my business. Except the toothache doesn't stop. For the next three days I was in excruciating pain, especially at night. I'm convinced tooth pain is some of the most pernicious pain there is in the world, and this was the worst of the worst. On the morning of the fourth day of the toothache, at 6:30am, after sleeping only an hour or two I couldn't take it anymore. I googled "emergency dentist [my city]" and found one near my house that, thankfully, took my insurance. They saw me at 11 and the dentist took an x-ray and did a limited exam... the tooth was too far gone and needed to be pulled. MORAL OF THE STORY: if your filling chips, get it replaced ASAP! YOU WILL LOSE YOUR TOOTH IF YOU DON'T! lol, okay sorry for yelling! But I'm so mad at my twerpy former self! The tooth came out - it was abscessed and extremely decayed. There is actually a black stain on the molar that was next to it from all the decay. It was disgusting and I was very ashamed.
As sad as it is, that experience was life-changing for me. As soon as the tooth was out I started researching my options for replacement. Not. Good. There is NO substitute for your teeth. Crowns are okay but they weaken the tooth. For missing teeth, bridges and dentures are hard to clean and can cause neighboring teeth to fail. Implants are very costly and even they don't last forever, plus they don't support the same eating and chewing function as real teeth. I learned all of this very quickly and it was very sobering. I became obsessed with oral hygiene and learning how to brush and floss properly as well as boost my health with xylitol mints and gum as well as high-fluoride pastes and rinses. During this time I learned about potentially closing the space with braces! That would be my absolute best option, hands down. I would get to keep all my existing teeth and support them with normal brushing and flossing rather than more complicated and risky care. Plus, I was told I needed braces before (by the office I liked but my mom had a disagreement with) due to very wide spacing between my anterior teeth and an edge-to-edge (neutral/even) bite. But, my teeth needed to be healthy before I can start braces, and since I hadn't an exam in more than five years, plus very little OH at home, I was very unsure of how healthy my teeth were or how much work I needed to do to get them ready for braces.
I ANXIOUSLY awaited my return trip to the dentist for my first complete exam in years. (She had me wait four weeks so the extraction site could heal.) I posted here on archwired and got a lot of great advice but the #1 thing I heard was get your teeth healthy before getting braces! I kept researching and kept looking at my teeth and imagining all the things that were wrong with them after so long, and all the things they would need done, and my gums were probably severely infected and how I was never going to get braces and I would have to get a bridge and I would lose more teeth... man. It was a ROUGH four weeks.
Well, today I saw the dentist, and unbelievably, I only have 4 active cavities that need filling! There are 3 small cavities we are going to watch and treat with fluoride varnishes and an rx toothpaste. She said I do have some gingivitis but that I don't have any deep gum pockets and that I don't need a deep cleaning, and once I get a normal cleaning and keep up with my c-shaped flossing for awhile the gingivitis should be reduced. I know that might not sound like a good appointment for a lot of people but after at least five years without an exam, very bad OH habits, and very heavy soda drinking, I can't believe my good luck. I am considering myself to be walking out from the high-stakes tables at Vegas having broken even and thanking the universe for protecting my teeth from the horrible way I was treating them. I am a changed woman! I am so excited for my new lease on my mouth!
My dentist is approving of my desire to get braces and doesn't see a reason to wait. She still wants me to get a bridge, though, and she wants to do Invisalign as they offer it at their office. I disagree as I explained a few paragraphs ago, plus I don't want to get orthodontics from a regular dentist. I know some people do and it works great, but since I have the spacing issue with the gap from my extraction I'd rather see a specialist. Plus, I just don't want Invisalign. My insurance doesn't cover it and I don't want to waste my $2500 orthodontics allowance!
With ALL of that said, I officially have a consult with an orthodontist this Friday at 9am! I still need to have the cleaning and fillings done obviously, and that will take place prior to getting started with braces, but that should only take a few weeks to sort out. I am soooooooo excited and am bouncing off the walls like this:
Hehehe.Okay, if you read through all of that I really appreciate it! I promise that future posts will be shorter!
I love pictures so I will post them throughout my treatment. Here are how my front teeth look now. They are yellow - they always have been. I did try whitening multiple times in high school (had the strips, had the little tray things, had the gels, etc.) but it made my teeth sooooo sensitive and painful so I just quit. I also have large stains on the front tooth, also been there all my life. I'm kinda self-conscious about the coloration but only in pictures, it doesn't stop me from smiling.
There is also some wear (chipping) on my front teeth that my dentist plans to restore with bonding. You can see the very wide spacing - the only non-wide spacing is the bottom two front teeth which are TOO tight, I can barely get flat dental tape into them!Holy cow the pictures were too big! Here's a link to the album: http://imgur.com/a/d2KD8
Time to 
(Not meaning to insult orthodontists at all! Just saying I was totally undereducated and making assumptions about stuff I didn't know anything about.)
What? "Has anyone ever told you you need jaw surgery to correct your bite?" No, they haven't. lol. Well, he says that he could put braces on my upper and lower teeth and close most of the spaces no problem, but that it would give me an underbite. So, I need the jaw surgery. I'm terrified of surgery, not to mention the cost. But, I would have awhile during my braces treatment to save up for it and maybe see a therapist to work on the fear. It's an option.
I do want to get multiple opinions but I don't like prolonging this feeling of anxiety if I don't have to. It will be nice if things go well on Thursday and I can pick a brace date! (I will need a cleaning and a few fillings before my brace date so it won't be the next week or anything.)
Hehe. Thank you for reading!
