Friday 21 November 2008 Got braces

Oh my! getting braces at age 45 :-( "because I am worth it" as it goes in the commercial LOL. Not to mention that the prospect of surgery is still scary as I have never in my life had surgery of any kind (I must be lucky).

So, this was the day and I was full of anticipation because this meant that my eating habits will change today :-( me who loves all sorts of food (and the ocassional junk food), things soft and hard to chew. The picture on the left shows how it looked before my teeth were sent to jail for the coming years. Nice restorations on the upper teeth, he? Thanks Dr.!. The lower ones will be done when I am done with braces.

And so it came to be that my mouth was going to be the host of some extra hardware, some of which may or may not be aesthetically pleasing but the end results -and the sacrifice- are well worth it.

My fiancée was there with me, watching every step of the procedure as the orthodontist carefully glued all Damon self-ligating braces to my teeth. The two crowns had to be sanded prior to the gluing otherwise it may not stick very well. Then the tubes at the back. It was a long procedure and I had forgotten to go to the loo to empty my bladder so I had to hold on...

Finally the wires were installed and snapped. These are self ligating braces that do not need rubbers or other "manual" adjustments. They kind of get activated with heat so every day I drink a few cups of hot tea and swish it all around. This was all necessary because I will be abroad most of the time so we needed as little adjustments/visits as possible. He is already experienced in such cases and I had only but excellent references.

So... after what seemed like an endless life of work at my mouth I was offered a mirror to see my new set of "tooth jewelry" LOL.

Oh my! there they are :( It was funny how all that hardware felt on my mouth. With an overbite and extra hardware my lips looked puffed up to the point the office manager (a week later) asked me what was wrong with my mouth until I could not get away hiding it anymore.

That Friday and Saturday were hum, a trial to my patience and a snapshot of what was to come. As gentle as the whole installation was my whole mouth was painful, I had a headache. It felt as if my entire band of teeth were on the move. Those first days my lips where very sore trying to get used to those pinching things (yes I got some wax too!) but now the lips have toughened up and it does not bother me anymore. But those first days with all the talking and laughing it really became very very sore! I had to take some pain medication.

Even worse this first week (two days ago was my 7 day anniversary) chewing anything -no matter how soft- was a real trial!!! When a plate of delicious food was placed before me it felt like a challenge, to chew it all, slowly and carefully feeling the pain. Pfew, luckily there was Dolex and cold water to soothe the pain as well as a loving woman.

My first post-braces flossing session took me 45 minutes!!! something I did before in around 5-10 minutes. Brushing is also a challenge, specially around the crowns where the glue is not as powerful.