The Final Push!

Today it has been exactly a year since my braces were put on! In some ways, it feels like forever. I am so used to them, even quite attached to them and knowing that they will be taken off in just 25 days feels very surreal. In other ways, it is no time at all and I recall this time last year as if it were yesterday. Things have come a long way!
 

L-R: Before Braces, 3 Weeks, 12 Months
 

Yesterday I went for my 6th adjustment and my ortho told me that my teeth are ready and the braces can come off during my Easter holidays. Monday 7th April is the big day! I am booked in for my braces to be removed. My teeth will then be cleaned and impressions taken for my Essix retainers. My ortho said that my bonded retainers, upper and lower, could be fitted in the same appointment. All in all, it should take about 40 minutes.

L-R: 13th March 2013 and 13th March 2014

The rest of the adjustment went well. My upper wire was replaced and my ortho bent the lower wire slightly to reposition one tooth. My ligatures were changed. The only major change he made was to my elastics. So far, I have escaped most of the torture elastics can inflict. I got my braces on 13th March 2013. Elastic ligatures were not applied until my second adjustment on 9th July and I started wearing an elastic band as well, just one, in a diagonal configuration on my left side after my third adjustment on 17th September.



1 Elastic: 17th September 2013-12th March 2014

As of yesterday until 7th April, I am wearing not one elastic but two. To finalise some adjustments to my bite, my ortho has asked me to wear an elastic at each side, in a square pattern, which I find a lot more restrictive than the diagonal pattern of before. Instead of two brackets connected, top front to bottom back, I have four at each side. An extra hook was added to the front, bottom left bracket for the elastic to connect to. I hate them and am counting the days until they are gone, although getting rid of the braces will be very odd.




2 Elastics: L+R 12th March 2014

They are fiddly to apply as with my brackets being clear, I tend to hook the elastic around the bracket itself, rather than the hooks as I am supposed to. I can't eat with these in as can barely open my mouth and I can only reapply them after eating using a mirror. I had grown accustomed to going without. It also hurts. After two to three hours wear, I get quite bad toothache and need a break. It is particularly bad on the right side, as I have not worn an elastic there before. I also had an extraction pre-braces on the left lower side, where the elastic would normally have attached, so the stretch is not quite so far.



Upper Teeth Comparison

My teeth are looking great but it is really hard to know what they truly look like with the wires still in place and I keep worrying that they won't be ready. My upper teeth are awesome but I am still a bit unhappy with the lowers, even though nobody else seems to think there is a problem. The three front lower teeth still annoy me because one is turned a little to the side, not quite the angle I want and one sticks up just a little higher than the other two. I hope this will be corrected.



Lower Teeth Comparison

After my impressions are taken on 7th April, I go back a week later on Monday 14th April to collect my Essix retainers and learn how to use them. I am unsure how easy I will find it to apply them since they go all the way round my teeth or how comfortable they will be. I have a really strong gag reflex and am incredibly uneasy about anything touching my palate, so impressions worry me a lot and I worry about gagging when I put the retainers on. I expect I will need to wear them full-time for a while before I transition to nights only but am not sure.

The countdown has started....

Broken Bracket Again

I have now been in braces for nearly 10 months! The elastics have been going very well. It took a few weeks but I eventually got used to putting the elastic in and could do it first time, most of the time. It started to feel normal eating with it in, even though it would occasionally come off and I managed to put it back in a few times without a mirror. I still found sometimes that I would lose two or three as I tried to get the bottom bracket hooked or would take one out and lose it but on the whole, I've been wearing an elastic full time.

I had my fourth adjustment in November and the ortho was pleased with my progress but I didn't blog as there was little to report. I had some new elastic ligatures put on and picked up a few more bags of elastics to keep wearing until my next appointment. There was no need to change either of the wires but the ortho bent the upper wire slightly to reshape one tooth. My fifth adjustment was supposed to be 23rd December but I misplaced the card with the time on it and stupidly did not leave my number when I left a message on the practice answerphone. As another patient shares my name, it was too late when they realised it was me so the appointment has been moved to this Wednesday 8th January.

Luckily, moving the appointment has worked out well because just this week, the bracket which my elastic attaches to, on the lower left-hand side has detached from the tooth. It may be to do with me putting elastics on all the time or it may be the filling on the side of the tooth which is now visible again. Either way, it has made wearing elastics a lot trickier. It is still possible to use the hook but the positioning is a bit off so I am mostly going without. Otherwise things are moving quite nicely and the gaps in my lower teeth are beginning to close. I am looking forward to getting a new bracket and some new ligatures as the current ones are a bit stained.

Update: I had my fifth adjustment today 8th January and the bracket and hook have been replaced so I can wear my elastic again. I also got new ligatures. It may be some time before my next adjustment. My ortho wants to see me before the Easter holidays due to Easter being late this year but there is no reading week in the second semester so it may have to wait.

6 Month Update: Elastic Woes!

Today I went for my third adjustment. It has now been 6 months! I can hardly believe it. The first month or so went so slowly and I had a couple of issues with broken brackets. Since then, it seems to have flown! I am so happy with how the upper teeth, previously very uneven are looking. They're much straighter! The good news is that this appointment was the least painful so far. My upper wire has been changed but I have not felt any difference at all, no pressure, no tenderness.

The bad news is I have my elastic band. It is only one but I am finding it quite a struggle. The elastic ligatures that I've had for a while, which don't need changing at home, have been reapplied but this time, I was asked to wear an elastic band as well. I understand it is to ensure my lower teeth move in the right direction to close the gap from where I had my extraction and stop any new gap forming in the process. My orthodontist fitted the elastic, told me to remove it for eating and that I'd be fine at reapplying it by hand. I got two bags full.

Then I came home and needed to eat something so I took it off and it was such a struggle to get back on. To start with, I'm not 100% sure I have put it on the right teeth. According to the diagram my orthodontist drew a circle on, I believe I am right with my lower backmost tooth which is braced (my very back tooth has no bracket on it at all). It has a hook for an elastic, while as far as I can see the tooth next to it does not, but it is this tooth which is beside the gap.

It also appears that I need to use the upper tooth second away from my front teeth, not the tooth right beside my front tooth, although in my many attempts I have managed to hook it on both. On all the pictures of silver braces I have seen, there is a clearly defined hook on the upper tooth but I can't see that on mine, which is a ceramic bracket so harder to see against the tooth. Looking at the photo I took of the tooth, it seems to be over a hook but it doesn't look like the hooks I've seen on silver braces. Are ceramics different?

I am on approximately my fourth elastic just today because the others 'pinged' out of my hand while I was fumbling in the mirror and they're unfortunately the exact whitish cream colour of my bedroom carpet. One has turned up. The others have not. I called the clinic in desperation and didn't even get to speak to my ortho, just the receptionist, who did not really help except to say there is no tool I can use (actually some articles I have read looking for tips online have mentioned a plastic sort of hook which some orthos can provide) and that I just need to practise it.

I have finally managed to get one on in what I believe to be the correct position but more by luck than by design. I managed it by hooking the upper tooth, which is relatively easy although it still takes me more than one try usually and then holding my finger on that end, while reaching for the hook on the bottom with the other. Getting over the bottom hook though, is very hit and miss. I have since eaten with the elastic in. It is apparently not essential to take it out. I was hungry but had only just managed to get it in so wasn't going to remove it.

On the whole, progress is good but there must be an easier way to put on this elastic. I am not now due back until 12th November. I am going away to uni this Saturday (about an hour and a half away by train) and moving into halls so had to select a late evening appointment during the reading week of the semester, when hopefully I will not have lectures. I hope I can manage. I am certainly not going to try and put them in on the go yet. I'm put out that the appointment was so short and I left with no real idea of what to do. I didn't even get to try and do it myself while I was there.

I have never been able to connect the knee bone to the ankle bone in Operation and that is what this feels like, trying to hook the elastic over the peg at each end. On the plus side, these are my latest pictures which I really like. Not only are my teeth looking so much better, but I have my new camera and the pictures are so much clearer. Before pictures are below.

Front

Uppers from below

Lowers

Elastic

Top Hook

This is where I was six months ago. Despite the breakages, the ulcer and now the elastic, it is so worth it!

Thicker Wires and an Ulcer

Time for a very overdue update. On 16th May, I went for my first official adjustment appointment, after two unscheduled visits to replace broken brackets. My orthodontist removed both wires to inspect my teeth and was very pleased with the progress that had been made. After two attempts, he was able to apply a thicker wire to my bottom teeth. The original thin wire was reapplied to my upper teeth, as my orthodontist felt they were not quite ready for a thicker wire.

With the thicker wire in place, I felt a lot more pressure on my lower teeth and noticed movement quite quickly. In particular the teeth on either side of the gap where I had a tooth extracted before getting my braces started to move and I became more aware of the bracket against my cheek. Unfortunately, I got an ulcer there. I have always been prone to mouth ulcers from time to time but have so far been lucky and avoided any significantly sore places since getting the braces but this ulcer stayed and started to get bigger.

Eventually the ulcer had become very swollen and inflamed and even started to bleed. I was catching it with my teeth when I spoke and when I chewed or swallowed and it would often scrape against or get hooked on that bracket. Since it was constantly irritated by the bracket it couldn't heal and despite my next adjustment appointment being scheduled for today, 9th July, I had to make an earlier appointment to get it looked at. I went in a fortnight ago and my orthodontist could immediately see how difficult things were.

He took the hooks off of the bracket which the ulcer was catching on and filed everything down quite a bit. This was unpleasant because it meant prolonged use of the filing/polishing tool which sounds like a drill. Although I wouldn't say it's painful exactly, the heavy vibrations were very uncomfortable as my teeth are quite sensitive. Even the pressure of my brackets being opened and new wires fastened in is hard for me to take. Worse, the noise seemed to fill and reverberate through my entire head. Afterwards, the ulcer stopped catching on the bracket and things improved, although it was still quite large and occasionally sore when irritated by something I'd eaten.

With the bracket filed down, I took to applying copious amounts of Bonjela Cool and using the rubber 'lip bumper' I bought just before the braces went on, when I created a dental kit for myself. I was disappointed with the lip bumper initially. It's a clear rubber tube with a slit along the back that goes over the wire and brackets but was impossible to put on. I was not able to cover all the brackets successfully but found that by cutting a small length of it, I was able to cover the two brackets the ulcer was catching on and the wire between them and it stayed put while I ate. The ulcer has started to heal and it should soon be gone.

Today, I went back for my second adjustment. This time I have had thicker wires applied to both my upper and lower teeth. This means my upper teeth now have the same thickness wire as my lower teeth got last time and my lower teeth have gone up yet another thickness, to a square wire rather than a round one. Elastics have also been applied to start closing the gap but the ligatures my orthodontist will change which can stay put and not elastic bands I have to change myself. They are clear so can hardly be seen. One bracket also came off during the fitting and was replaced. I will try and post pictures soon.