John Oliver had work done and now I am too

[VioletStubbs]

Fun fact: I've never thought about the value of chewing before today. I've always been able to chew my food up and I'd never even thought about how I'd cope if I couldn't use my teeth all of a sudden.

Today that lack has been fairly thoroughly made up for. Not being able to chew my food makes my stomach huuuurt.

Last night I made a tasty beef and red wine casserole and I chopped up the beef into little tiny bits so I wouldn't have too much trouble gettin' my mastication on. It was pretty tasty but I still had to chew the beef up before swallowing, and because my molars hurt when I do that, I was only doing half the job and swallowing half-chewed casserole (what a delicious mental image. sorry) and jeez, my stomach hurt afterwards. I was terrified I'd given everyone (we had people over) food poisoning but luckily I hadn't. That didn't help me though.

So today I finished my lunch and walked back to work and there's the same feeling in my stomach- like there's something in there that's a bit harder and pointier than the soft mush it should be after you chew something up. And then it hit me: not chewing properly isn't just uncomfortable going down, but uncomfortable once it's completely down.

Stick blenders it is!

[Steph30]

Maybe you're swallowing more air while "chewing" than usual and that's whats causing the pain? - I know i'm a hot mess when I eat and I struggle and it's ridiculous but I can image we take in a ton more air than usual lol like, inhaling our meals.. Just a thought

[VioletStubbs]

And braces are on! I feel like there's a cheese grater in my mouth and my canines are rubbing up against my top lip and it feels like it's going to be pretty raw in the morning, but I'm pretty happy to finally be starting to straighten my teeth out.

Besides my lips feeling a bit irritated, I haven't had any pain yet. I thought it'd set in pretty much right after my orthodontist fitted the wire because there was SO MUCH PRESSURE when he was attaching the ligs to the brackets, but so far, so good. The bracing isn't too bad and was over in record time because I think Dr hadn't had his lunch yet haha. But the cold water and air they used to clean the teeth before doing the etch and bond really hurt because my teeth are sensitive to cold stuff now and I could feel it right down to the nerves AND he had me run my tongue over the brackets and wire before he let me go to make sure there was nothing sharp to jab me and the taste of the bonding stuff was all over the brackets and it was absolutely disgusting. But there's nothing jabbing at me so there's that.

One more thing, my bite is completely out of whack now. I had a filling in a back molar two weeks ago and I think it was a bit high, and the spacers made it worse, and now with braces on I can't find a comfy place for my teeth to sit together without some teeth touching up against brackets below. Doc checked all that to see if I needed buildups before I left but now it's all gone crazy. Reckon my gnashers could have shifted already? My front teeth feel a bit clicky, and isn't that a harbinger of movement?

Anyway, pictures of day one:

[VioletStubbs]

Maybe you're swallowing more air while "chewing" than usual and that's whats causing the pain? - I know i'm a hot mess when I eat and I struggle and it's ridiculous but I can image we take in a ton more air than usual lol like, inhaling our meals.. Just a thought

Steph, I reckon you're probably right about gulping air down with poorly-chewed food. Is there no end to the indignity of orthodontics? hahaha

Annnnnd one more photo because I was only allowed three for my last post. It's how I smile normally, and there's just the crazy zig-zag wire that's obvious. Pretty happy with ceramics, for what it's worth.

[noodles]

[quote="VioletStubbs"] Is there no end to the indignity of orthodontics? hahaha[/quote] Congrats about putting the braces on! This is exciting I wish I could see the pics
P.S. I'm also a fan of John Oliver

[VioletStubbs]

Is there no end to the indignity of orthodontics? hahaha

Congrats about putting the braces on! This is exciting I wish I could see the pics
P.S. I'm also a fan of John Oliver

Only one more post I think! Glad to meet another John Oliver fan. He's just so good at what he does and whenever I go on about him (which is kinda often) people have no idea who I'm talking about and I get personally offended on his behalf hahaha

[Bracingfor33]

Use wax! I am currently battling the" omg I can't stand it anymore" phase with the lip rubbing. It may feel tolerable now, but it gets worse. Trust me and put wax on the teeth you feel rubbing ASAP.
You and I have very similar mouth structures. You can look at my profile and see my results after 3 months if your curious to see how quickly my progress has been.
Its pretty impressive to me lol. Good luck to ya and keep us posted!!

[VioletStubbs]

Use wax! I am currently battling the" omg I can't stand it anymore" phase with the lip rubbing. It may feel tolerable now, but it gets worse. Trust me and put wax on the teeth you feel rubbing ASAP.
You and I have very similar mouth structures. You can look at my profile and see my results after 3 months if your curious to see how quickly my progress has been.
Its pretty impressive to me lol. Good luck to ya and keep us posted!!

Wow our teeth ARE similar, aren't they? I wonder how my ortho plans on getting my arch to behave without extractions or appliances? Your teeth look great, btw! And yeah, I slept with wax over two canines last night and today I've got it over a poky lig wire tie because there's starting to be a bit of a hole in my lower lip.

Also, there's archwire poking out behind the molar bands on my left side, both top and bottom. Does the wire stick out as the teeth move? Because there's a couple, maybe a few millimeters poking out where there wasn't anything last night. And does it happen only on one side or should it be happening on both sides? There's so much I don't know!

[Bracingfor33]

Yes, wire poking out usually either mean two things, 1: movement, 2: the wire came out of its groove. If its completely through the last bracket, its still good. If its out, you should be able to manipulate it back in. But I am assuming just movement; yay!!
I only wore that apparatus you saw in my post for 2 months. It didn't do anything. Or should I say, it hadn't done anything when I begged him to remove it. The braces have done all the work. Trust the process. You're gonna have a beautiful smile before you know it!! Exciting, isn't it?!

[seira]

VioletStubbs; I LOVE your posts. Humorous, and informative. I'm new to this forum, I wish there was a way to subscribe.

[noodles]

Wohoo I can see! The brackets look pretty cool and I'm loving the wire Hope the pain and lip irritation have subsided a bit.

[SinkFullOfDinner]

VioletStubbs - I totally agree with seira. Hilarious comments! Maternal sympathy and advice, fashion input from atrixa, and an account photo that completely captures the turtleneck to the nose look that I'd debated adopting earlier this year. It has it all.

[VioletStubbs]

So it's been a bit more than a week since I got the braces on and weirdly, it already seems pretty normal to me. I mean, when I think about it, it's surreal that I've finally got something that I've been pining over for nearly two decades, but the physicality of having braces feels completely normal. Also, everybody who knows I got them on is pretty psyched for me and I haven't had a single weird look. So if you're worried about how people will react, don't. The only people who've bullied me were my parents, and they did it because they think they're funny (see: 'You'll have to get a cat!' above).

That's not to say the first two days weren't bloody miserable. The first night was fine, a bit of rubbing but none of the deep, kind of itching, ache in the roots of my teeth. But the next day...hoo boy was I not a fun person to be around. The rubbing wasn't bad, but the wee notches on the inside of the molar bands? They're a damned torture device and where most of my pain was coming from. I can deal with the deep ache in the roots of my teeth because it kind of feels like your muscles do after a good workout and you can relieve it a bit by pushing out on the arch with your tongue or sucking in with your lips. It just changes the ache so it doesn't get too boring. But the inner notches? they just rub and rub at your tongue until it hurts to talk and there's nothing you can do about it except hold your jaw open and have your tongue sticking out so it's not touching anything at all. Wax won't stick to it either because it's close to salivary glands so you can't get it dry. Nope, you just have to buck up and ride it out until your tongue toughens up, which happened for me blessedly quickly.

I gave up on my 'no ibuprofen' rule by the saturday morning because I was starving and tried to eat mcdonald's (we were on a road trip to see family) and couldn't eat my fries (the best bit) and had a miserable time with my burger. Fifty km later and I was in agony and could only find ibuprofen in my camera bag, so I took that and it was the best thing I could have done. The pain just stopped. On my tongue, in my teeth, everywhere. And it didn't come back until my lips got raw from rubbing, which was fixed easily with wax. Such a relief.

Speaking of wax, my strategy has been to let my lips get rubbed up a little, just until they're starting to hurt a bit. Then I put the wax on. I feel like that gives the inside of my mouth the signal that it needs to harden up before it has to deal with big ulcers and stuff like that, and saves me the pain of having to have those before my mouth is properly toughened up. It's worked this far, obviously I'll probably be crying in a week or so about the big ulcer that hurts so bad and you can laugh at my hubris.

And finally, a word on parents. I've been complaining about my crooked teeth since they came in crooked. The day after I showed Ma and Pa my new braces, she said, 'you know, we never actually realised until now how bad they really were, we knew they were a bit crooked, but we didn't realise how crooked they were...' Apparently, I wasn't complaining loudly enough.

[VioletStubbs]

VioletStubbs - I totally agree with seira. Hilarious comments! Maternal sympathy and advice, fashion input from atrixa, and an account photo that completely captures the turtleneck to the nose look that I'd debated adopting earlier this year. It has it all.

Thanks! One of my life's ambitions is to trick people into thinking I'm funny. The turtleneck bandana will always be a good idea. For extra pizazz, steal a cashmere one from you mum and pair it was a dead-eyed stare like I did.

[VioletStubbs]

Wohoo I can see! The brackets look pretty cool and I'm loving the wire Hope the pain and lip irritation have subsided a bit.

It has, thank you and yeah, I'm loving the ceramics on top. People have to get right up in my face to really see my braces so it's pretty good. Unfortunately (or fortunately if you're hoping for friends supportive of your braces treatment) it means that my friends keep getting up in my face to see my teeth because they're all as excited as I am to see movement hahahaha.