Didn't expect this adjustment to hurt so darn much!

[HeyBartender]

Today I had my second adjustment. The last one ended up being a piece of cake (all they did was replace the bands), so I was expecting more of the same.

You know it's going to be a bad time at the ortho when, after hearing what the doctor wanted her to do to me this morning, the assistant lady hands you 2 Motrin and says "take these. you're going to need them." Oh, goody.

I've now had braces for over 3 months. The good news, I was told today, is that I can stop turning the screw in my palatal expander- now it's just stablizing or something. I'm crossing my fingers that soon he'll surprise me and say that it can come out sooner than expected!

The bad/good thing is that they're now actively trying to close the gap in my front teeth where I had the extraction done a couple months back. Up until now, it's been moving slowly with just the bands.

So today, they replaced my 'almost invisible' bottom titanium wire with a factory-grade silver metal one, that has little hooks coming off of it. The hooks were attached to the bands so that things start to move along a little quicker.

Which, ok, this is great that the gap is finally going to start to close, but these hook things? OW OW OW!!! They point right at my gums, and rub up against the inside of my mouth whenever I talk, laugh or smile. Suffice it to say, i'm not doing much of any of those today! Wax doesn't stay, since it's a part of my mouth that moves so much, so i'm pretty much having to stay silent. I tried to have a conversation earlier, and now the inside of my mouth is torn open and bleeding, making the problem even worse.

Ugh, can't wait to get through this part. Soup for lunch, mashed potatoes for dinner for me! But I was told to come back in three weeks, so maybe this whole thing is short-term? I sure hope so...