why I love braces

You know? Seven-ish months into this journey, I love my braces. Here's why.

• They are always a conversation piece.
• They are an excuse to not try a food or a drink I don't want to at a party or social gathering (oh... no thanks, you know, I'd have to go brush afterwards again. thanks anyway!
• They are an excuse to eat frozen yogurt whenever my teeth hurt.
• They are working so quickly and efficiently!
• I have met a whole host of wonderful blogging friends.
• At the end of all of this, I will have a beautiful smile and an even-more beautiful bite!

In other words, while I'm not seeing any changes, I know that they're working in there. My teeth have been hurting quite a bit (randomly) for the past week or two, now. My jaw is very tired all of the time, and it's been giving me vicious headaches. Stupid bite.

Just two weeks ago I had a PERFECT placement to chew food - it was beautiful! I wanted to eat all of the time because so many teeth met together! However, now we're back into a more normal placement - only the outside of my rear-most molars on my right side touch when I bite, and my incisiors on my left side touch at the same time. Well, that's the bite that I chew with, not the bite that has unsurfaced itself. I'm developing quite the overbite! It's really attractive with the large gummy smile and huge braces, let me tell you :) I'm workin it!

Progress picture time! (It's too bad that it's not easier to upload photos. I really have a tough time with it sometimes!)

Look at my overbite! I'll give you two shots of it (one sideways because my photo editor is being a pain in the rear end). It is large. Very, very large. And seeming to keep growing (great). In fact, when I position my jaw where it should be (versus where I'm posturing it to be) I can stick my tounge out at people. Fun times, huh? It doesn't seem like my open bite is getting any worse, though... In fact, it seems to be getting better!!

The arch on my lowers is continuing to widen. It's really a spacious home now for my tounge! My gaps from my extraction are still there - but the one on my right side seems to be closing up quickly lately - hopefully the left one follows suit!

Finally, the uppers. They seem to be doing NOTHING! I was a bit upset at the last wire's lack of teeth moving - especially in the area of my front teeth. I assumed that this wire would kick some butt, though - and it just hasn't. It's changed a little, my arch seems a bit wider, but what I really want to happen is for those front teeth to straighten out. And they're just not. Maybe the next wire will do it - my next appointment is in just a few weeks.

Until next time!

swollen gums

So I'm a bit of a compulsive teeth brusher. Many fellow bloggers have admitted to letting things slide a bit after having braces for a while, but I am not one of them yet. I brush in the morning. I brush in the afternoon after lunch. I usually brush after dinner, but always take a long, long brushing and flossing at night before bed with the fluoride paste and the million little brushes. Every time something enters my mouth I make sure to at least rinse, I often brush.

Another side note for the upcoming question: I have swollen gums. I am a mouth breather at night, and the orthodontist says that makes my gums worse. My gums on my lower teeth used to be incredibly swollen because there were parts of them I couldn't get to with a brush or floss, but after the three months or so of braces, they have become healthy and pretty much normal.

My top teeth, however (here comes the question!), seem to be doing terribly with my new braces. Despite the normal brushing/ flossing routine that whipped my lower gums into shape from the beginning, the top gums keep getting worse and worse. In fact, there is one spot where my gums are approaching the bracket on my tooth, and will probably encroach the tooth by tomorrow or Tuesday.

Should I call the orthodontist for this? I mean, I'm doing ALL OF THE RIGHT THINGS. I'm not some 12 year old who doesn't brush or floss. I'm not eating things I'm not supposed to eat (except corn chips, but I make sure to break them into really really small pieces). It should be getting better, at least in my non-professional-worried-about-everything opinion.

I'm worried that stuff is going to get trapped underneath the gums and over the bracket, or that I could develop an infection or something. I could brush more, or floss more, but that seems like it might make things worse....

What do you guys think? Should I call the orthodontist, or just keep on keepin' on?

PS. Thanks for all of the support with the new upper braces, by the way. They feel much more natural, they don't hurt very much, and my lips feel like they're starting to fit over them nicely. You guys are amazing :)

ouch.

The braces are terrible. So terrible, in fact, that despite taking pictures for later reference, I was not sure if I could bring myself to show the rest of the world. But this morning, I have better resolve, better tylenol, and a better sense of humor. So, here we go. Huge, terrible, so big-my-lips-don't-really-fit-over-them braces. Yikes.

And they hurt like... well, they hurt. Last night was worse than this morning, except for my jaw. My jaw is deciding to declare mutiny on the rest of my skull and teeth and is throwing HUGE fits for reasons unknown. My top teeth don't hurt TOO terribly yet (though I already miss being able to "bite" into things), but that new wire on the lowers is movin' and shakin', let me tell you. Can't wait to see all the progress.

But MAN, do they look awful! If only my lips fit over them in any way.... Hopefully that improves soon.

clipped

Last weekend while the braces were dancing in Portland, I broke down, brought out the nail clippers, and asked Nick to play orthodontist to my back wires (yes, I called my orthodontist first). But he couldn't get his big hands in my mouth, and I couldn't see with MY hands in my mouth, so I reluctantly gave up to call on Monday.

But Monday passed with a school-wide field trip to the skating rink and a rehearsal, Tuesday passed with an all-day music field trip and a 4.5 hour rehearsal, and by yesterday morning I was about ready to pluck the whole darned wire out of there. Luckily, they had a "comfort" appointment open Wednesday evening, and I got to go in and get it clipped.

Ahh, relief. My tongue is no longer getting cut every time I swallow, and I don't get spontaneous migraine headaches from the wire getting stuck between my two back teeth, or wedged in a weird way in back of the back tooth.

My teeth are continuing to get more and more straight, which makes EVERYTHING easier! I can talk for longer, I can play my clarinet for longer, it is easier to understand me.... Just as I'm getting used to everything, it's edging on time to get those top braces on - March 31st (and don't worry, I made an afternoon appointment this time).

PS. I tried the orajel discs... you know, the discs for mouth sores that you stick on and give you hours and hours of relief? To put it lightly, they are a waste of your 5 dollars. It was great for the first 30 seconds or so, but then it snagged on one of the brackets, and instead of coming off lightly, it pulled and pulled and made the sore worse than it started out. Good idea in theory, not so good in practice.

Just thought I'd save y'all some pain.

pity-poo-party (beware)

Read the title. I warned you.

Okay, for the first time in braces history (the whole five weeks), I'm mad at my braces. I want to take them off now. They're done. I'm done.

I play the clarinet. I love the clarinet. It is an extension of myself, and I play well. The first time I played with braces, it was mildly annoying, but I was encouraged - my tone didn't sound too bad, it wasn't very painful, and I knew it would improve in time.

That's where I was wrong! It hasn't improved! In fact, if anything, it gets worse and worse every time I play. On Monday night, I only played at half of my rehearsal and I barely made it through THAT - no matter how much wax I put on, the one painful bracket poked through. Tuesday night, I was supposed to have an hour and a half of another rehearsal for a musical I've been hired to play in. The rehearsal went almost three hours - I wanted to stop because I felt like my lip was hamburger and I was bleeding, but I was sight reading, I'm getting paid quite a bit, and we only have two rehearsals total before we perform.

Today, I've been slathering on chapstick and I've got so much wax in my lip it looks like I'm using chewing tobacco, but it's still managing to be painful. My own fault, I know.

I just keep thinking back to when I could play for six hours at a time without being too sore. I hate that I sound bad, and it's not my fault. I hate that I have no stamina. I hate that it just doesn't feel right - my clarinet doesn't fit me anymore. I feel like it's a prosthetic limb or something (not to compare my clarinet playing to an amputee victim, but you get the drift).

And while I'm complaining about braces, I am SO TIRED of not being able to enunciate things correctly. My 7th and 8th grade choirs are singing a song with a really fast tongue twister in it, and I'm telling them to speak clearer, think about diction, but I can't do it myself. Or, if I do, I'm spraying my front row of altos with spit.

And I miss almonds. Okay, pity-poo-party over.

oh my GOSH

I have the most random story to tell. Hang on to your braces, gals.

So.... yesterday at school, I noticed my back tooth (well, the last tooth hooked into my archwire) was a bit tender. I thought this was odd, as my orthodontist told me that the other teeth were going to move back, instead of the back teeth moving forward. Okay, not such a big deal.

Right after school got out, I had to run to a teacher meeting. I noticed my tooth really starting to throb, worse pain than I've had with braces thus far. The meeting lasted two hours. By the end of the meeting, the tooth pain was starting to sear into my inner ear on that side, and tweak out my jaw. I'm thinking... "damn! this tooth is on a mission!" but didn't really worry about it.

Then, I get home, and my husband takes me out to dinner for my birthday (yes, it was my birthday yesterday)... by the time we were seated at the table, every time my tounge or cheek hit the tooth, I jumped up and yelped in pain, and the pain was shooting up into my skull and down into my neck. Now, I'm getting a little worried, because right before I left I downed a full dose of tylenol AND ibuprofin (and except for the first two days in braces, I haven't taken a single pill for any braces-related pain). I finish my dinner (ish, meaning I eat the mashed potatoes, try to gum some asparagus on my non-dominant side and eat cheesecake), and go home, on a mission to find out what in the heck is going on in my mouth.

All it was? The back of my archwire, which is slowly poking out more and more (as damon braces do), had caught itself on the INSIDE of the very back tooth, even though it usually sits on the OUTSIDE of the very back tooth.

I flicked it with my nail, and all shooting-type mind-numbing spot-seeing pain was over with. By this morning, my tooth has forgotten everything (though, I keep flinching every time I chew food on that side, just from 7 hours of pain).

Weird. Hey, now I know.

I can floss!

Now, I know that all of my orthodontic-type-fellow-bloggers are scoffing inside and saying to themselves "Stephanie doesn't floss? Gasp!". Hold your horses. Stephanie DOES floss, but between two teeth I have been unable to floss due to the bracket position and how far one of the teeth were set back. Every single night since I've gotten the braces, I've tried to floss between those teeth to no avail until two nights ago... when, suddenly, the floss slid through! (Angels sang, ballerinas danced, my friends I was sharing a hotel room with laughed at my excitement, I called my husband in the middle of the night).

The braces made their debut at my annual music education conference. I had tons of questions about them, and more disbelief that a clarinet player would WILLINGLY add a half inch of pokey metal to her teeth.

Also, I found it's really difficult to not eat on my normal schedule. Right now, I wake up, eat breakfast, brush my teeth, eat a snack if necessary during my planning period at school, brush my teeth, eat lunch, brush my teeth, eat dinner, brush my teeth. You get the drill.

But at conference, life tends to revolve around the sessions rather than meals, so everything is eaten on the go - I felt really OCD running into the restrooms four or five or six (or seven :-#) times a day with my travel toothbrush. My friends found it hilarious, at least.

Finally, the updated pictures - exactly a month since I've gotten the braces on.

put back together

I'm all put back together. We finally got to come in on Monday afternoon, and I went straight to the orthodontist. I thought they would do something special - I don't know, put a powerchain on to close the extraction gaps, put a different wire in, attach the teeth differently.... But, no. They just put it back on my teeth, wiggled the other tooth that's in a similar position, and sent me on my way.

On a happy note, I bit into a sandwich today! It didn't exactly feel good, and food was stuck EVERYWHERE, but I bit! My teeth feel surprisingly good today... in fact, too good. I keep wondering if my teeth are even moving, they feel so good.

Here's a picture of the bracket hanging off. And yes, I have a peice of some sort of orange food in there. Probably one of the orange pieces in the scones that were impossible to get out. Ah, well.

pop!

Not a long post, as I'm stuck in a hotel and I imagine there is a line for the computer, but my bracket actually POPPED OFF my tooth yesterday afternoon (it actually made my head spin it hurt so bad, and my teeth have been so sensitive it's crazy ever since). That particular tooth has been pretty painful the past few days, and it looked like the bracket was coming off, but it's sure completely off now. It's hanging on the wire, bugging the crap out of my lip and pulling all my other teeth out of alignment - since now they are weirdly pulling in a different direction. Yay for big chunks of wax that look SO GROSS but work alright.

I was hoping to get into the orthodontist tomorrow morning, but we flew into Spokane for a layover, and the airport was shut down a few hours later for weather. So I'm missing an extra day of work, AND I'm in nasty dental pain. Booooo.

Now, the goal of this wire was to close some of the gap left by my extraction, and then rotate the teeth and remove some of the crowding. I think my wire's wire got crossed (haha, sorry), and while my gap isn't closing, my teeth are trying to remove crowding and line up like good little soldiers.... but there isn't room! I woke up this morning with some pretty sore front teeth, especially one that leans back into my mouth - it turns out my wire is trying to force that tooth through a space about half it's size... and the bracket is actually pulling itself off the tooth. If you look closely, you can kind of see it.

In another note, I think I'm glad to be teaching middle school through all of this. I will never be able to develop an embarrassing braces habit (like picking at them with my tongue in public, like I hear is common) because every time I do something slightly out of the ordinary, my kids call me on. Today: "Hey! Hey Mrs. S! Why do you keep poking your braces out of your bottom lip?" I paused, and realized I was doing it unconsciously. This morning during first period they caught me picking banana out of my braces.

It's too bad my orthodontist is out of town. I'm off to take the braces dancing in Salt Lake City this weekend.... It's their big swing dancing debut!

Thanks for all of your well-wishes and support! Have a great weekend!

braces (halfway)

I have my bottom braces on! The past week, I've had nightmares about missing my appointment somehow, and then on Monday morning Nick woke up at 10am... my alarm hadn't gone off! And my appointment was a half hour away at.... 10am. I've never once been late to an appointment of any kind - not kidding. I'm a get-there-twenty-minutes-early-just-in-case kind of gal, not a shoot from the hip get there whenever kind of gal.

But, everything worked out fine - my bottom teeth are going to take 6-7 months longer than my uppers (half of the time!), and he said there isn't really a reason to have my uppers on yet, in fact, that I could wait a considerable amount of time before getting them on. (However, I want them on NOW so convinced him to let me get them on at my next appointment, March 31st).

Other than being more disappointed in myself than you can BELIEVE, I'm doing great! The teeth are tender, but my lip is holding up well (all those years of clarinet playing, I'm sure). Eating isn't a problem, as I'm STILL crazy sick and can't hold anything down, so I don't really eat. (No worries, I'm back to the doctor this afternoon).

I can't wait to watch all the progress. He said that with this archwire, they're trying to shrink the gap, un-rotate my teeth, and eliminate some of the crowding up front. Sheesh!

On a final note, does anyone out there gave the Damon Braces system? And if so, is it weird that my orthodontist is allowing me to cut my own archwire when it starts to poke out the back? It sounds weird to me, but I'm not complaining.

teeth pictures, post extraction

Finally, I get my camera out of Nick's car, where it's been held hostage for the past month or so. First, the obligatory pre-everything-except-for-extraction photo of my nice big gummy smile (sometime I'll post one of a BIG smile - this one is pretty conservative).

Next, my amazing bite! The orthodontist, oral surgeon, and dentist kept talking about my open bite. Truthfully, I never really thought about it being really open until I took these pictures - and now I notice that the only teeth that touch in my mouth are on my right side, my back three (oops, now two) teeth. Odd.

I look a little tired (okay, a lot tired and slightly dramatic), but this is my biggest problem with my stupid mouth/jaw/bite/everything combined: My lips don't cover my teeth. So, if I'm not paying attention and I space out during the day, I get a slack-jawed, stupid look that's completely unattractive. Such as the picture to the left.

My lower jaw sans two teeth. The hope is that the Damon braces system will widen the lower arches enough that the extra step in my jaw surgery won't be necessary... Hence I said goodbye to two teeth, as the crowding is pretty insane. Also, my teeth lean too far inwards, which will be fixed first off.

My upper palate. Please ignore the multitude of cavities, as I'm pretty embarrassed of them. My teeth aren't too crowded, but my arch is very narrow. They'll widen this as much as they can with the damon braces like my lower jaw, but then they'll widen it during the main surgery as well. (Though, if it doesn't look like they will be able to get enough widening with the damon system, I'll have to do the SARPE thing - I'm crossing my fingers to avoid it!) My teeth on the top side really lean towards the inside of my mouth, as well, which should be fixed straight away.

Side profile with my lips relaxed (it's a bit weird from the shadows, but you can see how my lips don't even come close to touching, and how long my profile is from my nose to my chin.

Anyway, in closing, it all starts here! My jaw is still pretty sore, but I'm able to open it today. The weirdest thing is, is my lower teeth really hurt today - and in looking at them in the mirror, they're already becoming less crowded, and edging into the recently vacated space.

cleaning

I'm getting my first teeth cleaning in almost three years tomorrow (I love having insurance again!), and I get to meet the dentist that's going to pull my bottom two teeth. He seems nice - he called me personally to confirm my appointment tomorrow - perhaps he realizes how much money he's going to make off me?

And Thursday's the appointment - the final consulatation with my orthodontist before braces!

I keep meaning to get the camera out of Nick's car so I can take my official "before" pictures. I'll make sure to do that this week sometime.

final verdict

The final verdict is in.... (drumroll, please?)

• Bilateral Saggital Osteotomy (lower jaw)
• Horizontal Maxillary Osteotomy (upper jaw)
• Segmental Maxillary Osteotomy (upper jaw)
• Genioplasty Osteotomy (chin)

The surgeon tells me that I had a difficult jaw/face/teeth to work out. There were many options, but the best seems to be they are going to do all of the surgery at once, instead of doing the SARPE. They will try to widen my palate as much as possible with the Damon Braces, and then finish up the job when I go into my jaw surgery. They are pulling two teeth out of my lower jaw for expansion and crowding, and will try to expand that as well with the Damon system.

Worst case scenario? I end up having to have separate surgeries and do the SARPE thing, and they have to also widen my lower jaw during the "main" surgery. She said she was 99.99% sure this wasn't happen.

I should be in braces about a year and a half (which works out perfectly, as I should be getting braces next month and I'll be able to get it during the summer), and then the surgery will happen. Altogether, somewhere around June of 2010 I should be all finished??

I have my final braces "sign-the-paperwork" appointment on Thursday morning.... I'm so excited!