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Smile!

I'm getting braces. In three weeks. For non-cosmetic reasons.  For the past 20 years, I've been destroying my front teeth, slowly but surely wearing them down with every chomp and utterance. It's now time to fork over massive quantities of cash to get this fixed or else they are going to die and I will have 6 (6!) dead teeth in the front of my mouth.  Not good for anyone, but especially not for someone who works on speech for a living.

The problems:

  • I have a huge overbite! Duh. 
  • My front teeth actually point inward. I had no idea. 
  • Severe overcrowding on the bottom despite having 3 teeth removed when I was a kid. The only reason I don't have severe overcrowding on the top is bc I had 4 teeth removed, including both my canines.  I guess they tamed me early. 
  • Severe wear on my front teeth, uppers and lowers, thanks to the front teeth grinding together inappropriately during my bite. 
  • My snaggletooth.  Spencer and I will no longer match in this respect. 
  • My gums.  Apparently they are all messed up. When I smile there is a lot of top gum, and that's bc my teeth have continued to descend as I've worn them down and the gums come with. Gross, right?  And my crazy teeth on the bottom that are so low have almost no gum underneath so I might need a graft.  Who knew they grafted gums?

The plan:

  • Immediately (2 weeks from now) 
    • 11/6/2014 - Bite props to make space so that they can put the braces on my teeth at all.  Otherwise my overbite is too bad.  This will create an enormous space between my front teeth. 
    • 11/6/2014 - Build-ups to fill in that gap so I can do things like eat, which I enjoy greatly.  Even so, for a while my mouth will feel very odd indeed. 
    • 11/6/2014 - New impressions. My teeth will be different, so new impressions are required. These go to the ortho so they can build my trays of braces. 
  • Slightly less immediately (3 weeks from now)
    • Braces go on!
  • The long haul
    • For 2 years I will have braces with wire adjustments about every 6 weeks. Also rubber bands to fix the overbite. 
    • They may have to pull a tooth on the bottom if they can't move stuff around enough.  It will be one of my front teeth because they are tiny and that's where I need the space, so I might have a gap for a while.  Which is really great if you are a speech pathologist and people look at your mouth all the time. Really. Great. 
    • Periodontal surgery. Again, this is possible. My upper gums might retract along with my teeth, but maybe not. And it may not travel up with that lower tooth, so I might need a graft.  Again, who knew this was a thing?
  • Finale (~2 years from now)
    • Braces off!
    • Crowns/veneers for the front teeth since they're so worn down. 
    • Retainers, probably a bonded one on the bottom
My face is going to cost more than my car, but for the first time in my life I'll have straight teeth.  Weird. 


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