I got my braces yesterday.
So, the experience. First, you walk in and there are a lot of implements. Like, a lot.
All that for my face. It's a little nerve wracking. On the right on the tray you can see the strips of plastic with my braces attached. They prepare them ahead of time so that they can be attached en masse. This mostly worked well for me. One of the braces on my molar didn't stay the first time, and then they ended up moving two of them, so they had to take them off and put them back on individually. I wish I had a picture of the remover because it looks like the thing you use to skin catfish except that they pry a bracket off your tooth and it makes a loud cracking sound. Not what you want to hear while you're laid out in a dental chair.
They put a large circular tarp in your mouth, and then something that looks like a transparent horseshoe with suction and a light that you bite on. I felt like a bit of a baby as the first half was honestly pretty scary. It's all vaguely uncomfortable, and it's hard to swallow, and I kept holding my breath and then anxiously reminding myself to breathe. Each time I would remember to breathe deeply, I could feel the tension wave rolling over my body. They did the left uppers and lowers, and then I took a break. The second side was much easier because I knew what to expect and about how long it would take.
After the braces and wires were in place, I got all sorts of instructions about dental hygiene and they gave me mac and cheese and a Sweet Frog gift card because they are clearly the best ortho office ever.
On a similar note, as I was getting started, all the staff in the ortho office came to look at my restorations (build-ups) that my dentist did. Apparently they are extremely well done and gorgeous. Imagine my relief.
So anyway, it just felt like a lot of pressure. Yesterday evening they started to hurt a bit, but it's easily managed with ibuprofen. Compared to my occasional migraine, it's nothing. Maybe this is a benefit of doing this in adulthood - you've experienced a lot of other pain?
The strangest thing by far, and something I shouldn't really be surprised by, is that all my teeth are loose. My orothodontist used the term unraveling, which doesn't really conjure the off-kilter horror you feel when you realize that you can wiggle each of your teeth with your tongue.
Couple other things:
- My braces in combination with my overbite mean that my front teeth don't even come close to closing. Since my front teeth are so big after the build-ups, that means that my molars no longer come close to touching, not even on the bite props they put in. My new resting position with my mouth closed is teeth apart, which is odd.
- This week is actually more comfortable for talking because even though the hook* on one of my upper braces scrapes my cheek pretty regularly, my front ones don't crash into each other any more because my front two lower incisors have bite pillows. Bite pillows are little tiny rubber wraps for my front braces so that when those teeth do hit, there's a nice rubbery cushion, as opposed to before when they just crashed into each other with pain and abandon.
- *At some point I will need to wear rubber bands, so a bunch of my side braces have hooks sticking off them. This is by far the most uncomfortable aspect of speaking.
Sorry for the terrible picture. It's really hard to take photos of your own teeth. On the right side of the picture, you can see the hook sticking up off the brace, and on the left you can see one of them covered in dental wax, which is the most amazing substance ever.
Finally, cost yesterday was $0 because it's included in my braces package. My first payment is on Dec 15 for right at $200, and my first wire adjustment is January 6 (8 weeks).
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