It's now been one week since I got my braces on and after one hell of an emotional roller coaster week, things are finally beginning to look up =].
On Saturday, I found one of the best braces inventions ever to be created at Target; WAX! You all may not believe it but Dino never gave me a package of wax to take home. Idk if it was because he thought I wouldn't have problems or if he didn't like handing it out, idk but the instant I put that ball of wax on that pokey wire and that little hook that caught my lip, my God, it was like the best feeling in the world, to finally feel my mouth returning to normal. Over the course of that whole weekend my canker sores were beginning to shrink and it all had to do with that wax =].
However, I still wanted to get the wire fixed for good (because I had to take the wax off before going to sleep) so on Monday, Mom tried calling Dino's office to see if he could squeeze me in for an appointment. As was expected, he was completely booked for the day (this place sucks at handling emergencies lol) so we had to book an appointment for the following day (today) for 4:00, which is of course, right after I get out of work on a long, hard day. I didn't really care though; I was just so excited to finally not have my mouth poke me anymore.
After work, Mari took me to Dino's and since we got there at around 3:15, the blond lady who worked at the front desk actually took me in the back herself to cut the wire off with wire cutters (which I didn't think she knew how to do lol). I will never forget her reaction when she saw how big that wire was in the back; she was like "Oh!" lol. It took less than two minutes to do and not only did she cut off that pokey wire, but there were also other wires in the back of my mouth on each side that weren't as long but still didn't need to be there. She cut all of those off and now my braces end at the molar bands with no wires sticking out at the end of them, just like they should have looked last week =]. The actual cutting of the wires, I'm not going to lie, was kind of uncomfortable, like it felt like she was going to cut the whole bracket off, but she didn't. And it was such a relief to finally get the wires cut off and be able to walk out of there with no wax on and with my mouth feeling normal for the first time since before my braces were put on =]. I've been smiling and opening my mouth and laughing for the rest of the night since then because now I am no longer in pain. I'm finally feeling like myself again, even with braces, and it's feeling absolutely wonderful! =]
I'll write back next week with another update, unless I have another braces quirk that I want to write about in here! =]
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
Braces: Day 3. Friday June 26th, 2009
Today was day 3 of my braces experience. The day where things (slowly) begin to look up in the pain stage of braces. I'd been looking forward to this day ever since Thursday night when I went to sleep. I kept thinking to myself, "when you wake up tomorrow morning, you're going to be all better."
Was I ever wrong.
Sure, my teeth weren't as sore as they'd been yesterday morning upon waking up. But I didn't even think about that because my whole entire mouth felt sore, particularly my right cheek. You know how I stated in my last entry that my whole mouth felt swollen? Well when I took a good look in the mirror, I finally figured out what was causing the problem.
There is a white canker sore on the inside of my cheek, a really puffy one =[. That explained why I felt as if my mouth was swollen; the sore combined with the poky wires was making me feel all puffy. My mouth would barely open to even have breakfast (mini muffin tops again); it hurt so badly. I tried Advil and cold compresses to reduce the puffiness but they only barely took the edge off. This combined with the piece of wire that kept catching my lip caused me to have a huge meltdown right there in the bathroom. And I mean chest-heaving sobs, tissue grabbing meltdown (of course this may have had to do with the MJ videos I watched that were all over YouTube, who knows). I was also feeling crummy because I was supposed to have gone out to lunch with my aunt Mari and she ended up bailing on me so I ended up spending another day at home, feeling sorry for myself and putting together something remotely decent for lunch (two Red Baron microwaveable french bread pizzas, 5 cheese and garlic) and then putting together my story for the June summer issue of The Chronicle.
A couple of hours later, Mom came home and we did our usual Friday night trip to the Pizza Hut in Munster. This time we diverged from our usual orders and gave the Personal Panormous Pizza a try (sausage with no sauce) and some pizza rolls stuffed with cheese, they were great! =] For anyone who's interested, if you're looking for a small pizza, the Panormous is the way to go. It has four huge slices and more than enough for two people to share.
After dinner, we went to Walgreen's and bought some more dental appliances; a Waterpik (btw, it's super fun to play squirt gun with as I found out lol), some colored "dent-a-picks" and, my new favorite lotion, Ambesol (or Anbesol, I forgot) to apply to my canker sore. I highly reccomend it for braces wearers; it numbs the sore almost instantly and gives it a protective coating that made my mouth feel almost normal again and not swelled up. Plus, there's no limit or anything; you can use it as much as you want. I'm planning to put some on again soon!
Also, as I was putting on the Anbesol, Mom found that there was a small piece of wire attached to the back molar band that was the cause of my canker sore. We're either going to let Dino cut it or she'll cut it herself with wire cutters. Anyway, I'm just thrilled to know the cause of the problem and hopefully my lip-catching problem will go away too once I find a way to adjust the little pointy hook so that it doesn't pinch without breaking anything else =].
Braces Countdown: 3 days down, 362 more days to go! =]
Was I ever wrong.
Sure, my teeth weren't as sore as they'd been yesterday morning upon waking up. But I didn't even think about that because my whole entire mouth felt sore, particularly my right cheek. You know how I stated in my last entry that my whole mouth felt swollen? Well when I took a good look in the mirror, I finally figured out what was causing the problem.
There is a white canker sore on the inside of my cheek, a really puffy one =[. That explained why I felt as if my mouth was swollen; the sore combined with the poky wires was making me feel all puffy. My mouth would barely open to even have breakfast (mini muffin tops again); it hurt so badly. I tried Advil and cold compresses to reduce the puffiness but they only barely took the edge off. This combined with the piece of wire that kept catching my lip caused me to have a huge meltdown right there in the bathroom. And I mean chest-heaving sobs, tissue grabbing meltdown (of course this may have had to do with the MJ videos I watched that were all over YouTube, who knows). I was also feeling crummy because I was supposed to have gone out to lunch with my aunt Mari and she ended up bailing on me so I ended up spending another day at home, feeling sorry for myself and putting together something remotely decent for lunch (two Red Baron microwaveable french bread pizzas, 5 cheese and garlic) and then putting together my story for the June summer issue of The Chronicle.
A couple of hours later, Mom came home and we did our usual Friday night trip to the Pizza Hut in Munster. This time we diverged from our usual orders and gave the Personal Panormous Pizza a try (sausage with no sauce) and some pizza rolls stuffed with cheese, they were great! =] For anyone who's interested, if you're looking for a small pizza, the Panormous is the way to go. It has four huge slices and more than enough for two people to share.
After dinner, we went to Walgreen's and bought some more dental appliances; a Waterpik (btw, it's super fun to play squirt gun with as I found out lol), some colored "dent-a-picks" and, my new favorite lotion, Ambesol (or Anbesol, I forgot) to apply to my canker sore. I highly reccomend it for braces wearers; it numbs the sore almost instantly and gives it a protective coating that made my mouth feel almost normal again and not swelled up. Plus, there's no limit or anything; you can use it as much as you want. I'm planning to put some on again soon!
Also, as I was putting on the Anbesol, Mom found that there was a small piece of wire attached to the back molar band that was the cause of my canker sore. We're either going to let Dino cut it or she'll cut it herself with wire cutters. Anyway, I'm just thrilled to know the cause of the problem and hopefully my lip-catching problem will go away too once I find a way to adjust the little pointy hook so that it doesn't pinch without breaking anything else =].
Braces Countdown: 3 days down, 362 more days to go! =]
Braces: Days 1 and 2
Day 1: Wednesday June 24th, 2009
Oddly enough, my first full day as a metal mouth had not gone badly at all. After everything I'd read about your first day in braces being extremely painful, the only real pain I felt was pain I used to feel while having Invisalign; the pain of shifting teeth. Like my first night, I was able to eat all of my meals normally with little to no pain at all. For breakfast, I had Eggo Mini Muffin Tops (the chocolate, chocolate chip kind), for lunch Mom and I (she took the day off from work in case I had problems with adjusting to braces) went to Culver's and I was able to eat chicken fingers and fries with ranch dressing and for dinner I had hot wings and Crazy Bread from Little Caesar's. My day was pretty much like normal and I even swam in the pool for a few hours that day because it was extremely hot =]. Only real annoyances were cheek sores and my lips getting caught on the rubber band hooks (thanks metal) and trying to put the rubber bands on. I swear, it was like Invisalign all over again with trying to get a feel for taking things on and off (you haven't lived until you try to get a plastic mold off of your teeth lol). Thankfully, a process that took me two hours to do in the morning took me two minutes by night. I was pretty proud of myself =]. Not much noticeable movement yet but I knew something was taking place because of the soreness. Popped Advil three times that day (morning, before lunch and before bed) to stay on top of the pain.
Braces Countdown: 1 day down, 364 more days to go! =]
Day 2: Thursday June 25th, 2009 (aka the day that MJ and Farrah died, RIP to both of them even if I'm not a fan of either =[)
Day 2 (yesterday) was a lot more difficult pain-wise. Taking my "rubbers" (lol) off before breakfast that morning was excruciating and despite eating the mini muffin tops again for breakfast, my teeth were pretty tender. Being an Invisalign veteran, I'm very familiar with the pain of teeth moving, but that combined with the annoyance of the wires scraping my cheeks and lips was enough to bring me to tears. I ended up staying home from work (well my community service hours for my scholarship) because my hours were from 6:30 (am!) to 3:30 in the afternoon and I knew with it only being day 2 that I would not be able to stay there the whole day, even with Advil. Even though I knew this was the best decision I could have made for myself so that I could truly get adjusted to my braces, this was just the beginning of the emotional roller coaster I felt that day.
In addition to the teeth shifting pain and the wire getting caught on my lip any time I tried to laugh or smile, my cheeks were beginning to get sores from trying to adapt to the braces in my mouth. I would run my tongue across the insides of my cheeks and feel sores like I never felt before. It was like I'd shredded my cheeks to pieces =[. Also, as the braces were trying to conform to my teeth, my lips began to look droopy to the point where my mom told me that my usual happiness wasn't on my face; that she wasn't used to seeing me look pouty (like physically lol). Thankfully, after looking on the metal mouth forum on archwired.com, I realized that this was indeed normal but that made me sad (to match the look on my face). Dino had never said that I would experience outer face changes in addition to my teeth straightening and with smiling and laughing becoming an annoyance I began to really feel emotional and wonder if this was indeed a good route for me to go on. I knew this all had to do with me getting my period soon (it's almost the 4th of July lol) and my lack of Pamprin (I was still taking Advil before each meal) but I was actually beginning to feel like I was now no longer myself. It was this day that made me want to start this blog because writing things down usually made me feel better and it did, but hearing about the deaths of MJ and Farrah all at once after I was done writing my first entries sent me back into my world of sadness and confusion. Also on Thursday night, my mouth now decided that my braces were a food object (despite wearing plastic aligners for 4+ years, go figure) and began producing large amounts of saliva, making it harder to talk and making it feel like my whole mouth was swollen =[. Advil didn't even help before bed, except to make me go to sleep.
However, there were some good things that happened on day 2. I began to notice some amazing movement with my teeth. My two top teeth on the right (your left) side of my mouth, after my two front teeth that had been slightly "gappy" before halting Inivisalign for good on the 4/18/08 disaster were now almost meeting with my bottom teeth to make that side of my smile almost perfect! =] I also got my first food particles stuck in my wires (chicken pieces) and had to dig them out with my "dent-a-pick" (our family's proxy brush), which means that more movement is taking place because as the teeth shift, there's nowhere else for the food to go except in between the teeth. I was also becoming a pro at taking off my rubber bands and putting them on and on this day, I felt as if they were doing their job because they were on for the majority of the day except to eat and brush and the tightness I felt with them made me feel as if my bite was improving. I was also beginning to feel more comfortable with the rubber bands being in my mouth. Eating was also still not a major issue for me (I was actually told by Dino and Assistant Brittany that I wasn't "going to have to live on pudding" lol and that I could eat everything normally, except for really crunchy and chewy things like caramel and nuts, which I don't eat). For lunch I made chicken fries and curly fries and for dinner, my mom brought home Applebee's where I ate boneless buffalo wings with ranch and mashed potatoes with cheese, yum! =] I was also glad to still be drinking my Diet Mountain Dew, even with braces, because that stuff is like a drug for me, if I had to part from it during this experience I probably would've gone into detox lol.
Braces Countdown: Two days down, 363 more to go! =] Next entry... Day 3!
Oddly enough, my first full day as a metal mouth had not gone badly at all. After everything I'd read about your first day in braces being extremely painful, the only real pain I felt was pain I used to feel while having Invisalign; the pain of shifting teeth. Like my first night, I was able to eat all of my meals normally with little to no pain at all. For breakfast, I had Eggo Mini Muffin Tops (the chocolate, chocolate chip kind), for lunch Mom and I (she took the day off from work in case I had problems with adjusting to braces) went to Culver's and I was able to eat chicken fingers and fries with ranch dressing and for dinner I had hot wings and Crazy Bread from Little Caesar's. My day was pretty much like normal and I even swam in the pool for a few hours that day because it was extremely hot =]. Only real annoyances were cheek sores and my lips getting caught on the rubber band hooks (thanks metal) and trying to put the rubber bands on. I swear, it was like Invisalign all over again with trying to get a feel for taking things on and off (you haven't lived until you try to get a plastic mold off of your teeth lol). Thankfully, a process that took me two hours to do in the morning took me two minutes by night. I was pretty proud of myself =]. Not much noticeable movement yet but I knew something was taking place because of the soreness. Popped Advil three times that day (morning, before lunch and before bed) to stay on top of the pain.
Braces Countdown: 1 day down, 364 more days to go! =]
Day 2: Thursday June 25th, 2009 (aka the day that MJ and Farrah died, RIP to both of them even if I'm not a fan of either =[)
Day 2 (yesterday) was a lot more difficult pain-wise. Taking my "rubbers" (lol) off before breakfast that morning was excruciating and despite eating the mini muffin tops again for breakfast, my teeth were pretty tender. Being an Invisalign veteran, I'm very familiar with the pain of teeth moving, but that combined with the annoyance of the wires scraping my cheeks and lips was enough to bring me to tears. I ended up staying home from work (well my community service hours for my scholarship) because my hours were from 6:30 (am!) to 3:30 in the afternoon and I knew with it only being day 2 that I would not be able to stay there the whole day, even with Advil. Even though I knew this was the best decision I could have made for myself so that I could truly get adjusted to my braces, this was just the beginning of the emotional roller coaster I felt that day.
In addition to the teeth shifting pain and the wire getting caught on my lip any time I tried to laugh or smile, my cheeks were beginning to get sores from trying to adapt to the braces in my mouth. I would run my tongue across the insides of my cheeks and feel sores like I never felt before. It was like I'd shredded my cheeks to pieces =[. Also, as the braces were trying to conform to my teeth, my lips began to look droopy to the point where my mom told me that my usual happiness wasn't on my face; that she wasn't used to seeing me look pouty (like physically lol). Thankfully, after looking on the metal mouth forum on archwired.com, I realized that this was indeed normal but that made me sad (to match the look on my face). Dino had never said that I would experience outer face changes in addition to my teeth straightening and with smiling and laughing becoming an annoyance I began to really feel emotional and wonder if this was indeed a good route for me to go on. I knew this all had to do with me getting my period soon (it's almost the 4th of July lol) and my lack of Pamprin (I was still taking Advil before each meal) but I was actually beginning to feel like I was now no longer myself. It was this day that made me want to start this blog because writing things down usually made me feel better and it did, but hearing about the deaths of MJ and Farrah all at once after I was done writing my first entries sent me back into my world of sadness and confusion. Also on Thursday night, my mouth now decided that my braces were a food object (despite wearing plastic aligners for 4+ years, go figure) and began producing large amounts of saliva, making it harder to talk and making it feel like my whole mouth was swollen =[. Advil didn't even help before bed, except to make me go to sleep.
However, there were some good things that happened on day 2. I began to notice some amazing movement with my teeth. My two top teeth on the right (your left) side of my mouth, after my two front teeth that had been slightly "gappy" before halting Inivisalign for good on the 4/18/08 disaster were now almost meeting with my bottom teeth to make that side of my smile almost perfect! =] I also got my first food particles stuck in my wires (chicken pieces) and had to dig them out with my "dent-a-pick" (our family's proxy brush), which means that more movement is taking place because as the teeth shift, there's nowhere else for the food to go except in between the teeth. I was also becoming a pro at taking off my rubber bands and putting them on and on this day, I felt as if they were doing their job because they were on for the majority of the day except to eat and brush and the tightness I felt with them made me feel as if my bite was improving. I was also beginning to feel more comfortable with the rubber bands being in my mouth. Eating was also still not a major issue for me (I was actually told by Dino and Assistant Brittany that I wasn't "going to have to live on pudding" lol and that I could eat everything normally, except for really crunchy and chewy things like caramel and nuts, which I don't eat). For lunch I made chicken fries and curly fries and for dinner, my mom brought home Applebee's where I ate boneless buffalo wings with ranch and mashed potatoes with cheese, yum! =] I was also glad to still be drinking my Diet Mountain Dew, even with braces, because that stuff is like a drug for me, if I had to part from it during this experience I probably would've gone into detox lol.
Braces Countdown: Two days down, 363 more to go! =] Next entry... Day 3!
Thursday, June 25, 2009
My B-Day and The First Night (warning: may be a long entry!)
Fast forward a week to June 23rd, 2009 (this past Tuesday) and it was my b-day. On my b-day I was both nervous and excited, excited to be moving forward with my teeth process (and to get rid of those goddamn spacers! lol) but nervous about what it would be like to be spending time in metal brackets.
My appointment was set for 1:00 in the afternoon (it had originally been set for 3:00 but Dino moved it to 1:00 to alot (sp?) time for teeth cleaning. After seeing various videos on YouTube of people getting their braces on and what the aftermath felt like, I felt oddly calm about going for my appointment. The only thing that had me rattled was the whole teeth cleaning thing because imo, that's one of the worst forms of dental torture with all the things they use to clean your teeth lol. So that I don't end up boring you with long details about my appointment, here's a short synopsis of what went on...
My appointment was set for 1:00 in the afternoon (it had originally been set for 3:00 but Dino moved it to 1:00 to alot (sp?) time for teeth cleaning. After seeing various videos on YouTube of people getting their braces on and what the aftermath felt like, I felt oddly calm about going for my appointment. The only thing that had me rattled was the whole teeth cleaning thing because imo, that's one of the worst forms of dental torture with all the things they use to clean your teeth lol. So that I don't end up boring you with long details about my appointment, here's a short synopsis of what went on...
- Got teeth cleaned by Dana, one of the hygenists. Also got a couple of x-rays done, one of them a panoramic one where you bit down on this stick and the machine went around your whole head. The X-Rays were purely for insurance reasons, since we'd switched dental insurances during my mini-break from orthodontic treatment. She also removed those God awful spacers, which felt like a relief once they came out, gah, no feeling like it! =]. Also, surprisingly, my X-Rays looked good, no decay or anything, which was odd because that was the first time in a few years that I'd gotten my teeth cleaned professionally lol. This took until 2:00.
- Waited in the waiting room for close to 20-30 minutes afterwards for Dino to be finished with one of his patients. This, imo, was the worst part of the whole appointment because I was just sitting there and thinking of everything that could go wrong with this whole thing.
- At around 2:15-2:30 somewhere in that timeframe, Dino called me back. He started off by sandblasting off my "dots" (attachments) from Invisalign. After that, this barbaric red mouth stretcher was put inside my cheeks so that he and his assistant (no older than me probably) Brittany could see every tooth in my mouth. Bondo was beginning to be placed on my teeth.
- One minor detour!!!: Dino had to laser off a piece of gum tissue on my right (your left) tooth, the third one from the front (sorry, I'm not good with technical teeth terms lol). I was skeptical at first because I'd had to do this same thing sophomore year with my cosmetic dentist, Eric Compton from the Compton Dental Center in Munster where he took off gum tissue from all around my mouth and novocained the whole thing to death and it hurt for weeks afterward =[. Thankfully only one tiny area got numbed and I didn't feel the shot or the procedure being done. This probably had to do with the stretcher in my mouth blocking out everything else but whatever lol. It only took 2-3 seconds out of my initial placing of the brackets.
- Brackets were glued onto my teeth and a wire was threaded through them. He actually used a WIRE CUTTER to cut the wire off. Like a real one! I felt like I was somebody's Girl Scout project or something lol.
- Got O-Bands (the little rubber bands they insert in the middle of the brackets to hold the braces in place and what gives the braces their "color"; I'm going into detail about this later) inserted. IMO, was one of the longest parts because by this time I was extremely bored.
- Was given a package of rubber bands. I was told to hook it first on the top canine and then hook it on the tiny hook where the back molar band was. Took a while to get a feel for the hooks but I eventually got it.
- Was able to go home!!! =]
Before I write about my first full night with braces, here's a small list of what I was unsatisfied with...
- Dino now told me that my estimated treatment time is now a year!!! I don't understand where the fuck that came from because he had said at the last appointment when we were discussing treatment plans that I would only have these on for six months. I'm not sure how things changed down the line or if he is saying this to avoid having to say an earlier date in case something goes wrong, idk. All I know is this: only like two fucking teeth are out of position! I know I'm probably bringing in the demons, but I think even six months is too long for these poor teeth to be in metal brackets, which brings me to my next complaint...
- Ever since I found out that I needed to switch to braces, I had a preconceived idea on what color I wanted my braces to be and that was clear. Before my B-Day, I'd discovered these braces called In-Ovation C, which were clear, ceramic braces that didn't stain, had a clear wire and were virtually invisible, like the braces form of my Invisalign. I knew that these were too good for Dino's office to have so I inwardly chose an alternative; I would go with metal brackets but choose clear, white, or gray O-Bands to at least attempt at making them invisible and also more mature. I am going to be 20 in a couple of months, wearing colored braces is so childish. But when the time came to pick O-Band colors, none of the aforementioned colors were among my choices. I ended up picking purple, which is my favorite color, but I'm not happy with them. Anyone from a mile away can tell that I got braces, despite the brackets being small, no bigger than my invisalign attachments (which was a relief because my teeth are hella small and I was afraid the braces would cover my whole tooth lol) and I look like a kid, which doesn't help much because I'm already short and look like I'm 12-13 as it is so this new installment doesn't help much. I'm glad that I'll be going through some O-Band changes before classes start August 31st so that I can pick at least somewhat of a mature color.
Anyway, as far as my first braces night goes, it went well. I was even able to eat Chicken Fingers and Potato Wedges from B-Dubs for dinner that night not only because I wasn't in a lot of pain but I don't have brackets on every tooth. On my top teeth there are only five brackets with a wire covering the bare teeth and connected to the molar band and same on my bottom teeth, only I have six brackets there. Since I chew with my back teeth as you all know, I was chewing where just the wire was and was able to eat normally (well as normal as you can get with a metal mouth lol) =]. I was Adviled up for most of the night so with the exception of the bracket rubbing up against my lips as I laughed or grinned widely and some shifting/dental work soreness that I expected, I really didn't feel any pain at all. My only major annoyance was my rubber bands because at that time I wasn't getting a good feel for them and despite Dino's insistence to wear them 24/7, even for eating and brushing, I took them off and put them on for both of those instances because his assistant Brittany told me later that she was told to do that with hers as well but because they were constantly snapping she took them off to eat and brush so I decided to do that as well.
Next entry... Days 1 and 2! =]
Spacers
On Tuesday June 16th 2009 at 3:30 pm, a week and counting before my "b-day" (braces day lol) on June 23rd, I went into Dino's office so that he could put spacers on my teeth. Before that, I wasn't too nervous about the procedure because I'd thought I did something similar to that for invisalign to get the plastic trays to fit. However, as I began looking them up on YouTube and Yahoo!Answers, I realized I was sorely mistaken. Spacers are little tiny blue rubberbands that go in between your back molars and are left on there for a week at the most to make room for the molar bands (rings that go over your molars) that hold the braces wire in place. They are essentially flossed in between your molars and as I was beginning to find out from various websites, they hurt like hell and you had to stick to a soft food diet because it was almost impossible to chew hard or crunchy foods.
At first, I thought everyone on the internet was full of shit, there was no way that spacers could hurt that much. Right after the procedure and for a few hours afterward they barely hurt at all and I was thinking "WTF is everyone whining about?" until I got the last laugh trying to eat Boneless wings from Applebee's that my mom had brought home for dinner. It hurt! I mean, not really hurt; that's a strong word. It was we'll say "uncomfortable" to chew on my back molars for that whole week, which is bad for me because I use my back teeth a lot to eat because due to having half of a fake tooth for my front tooth (long story) I don't "bite" into foods with it. I was relegated to taking Advil before each meal just to make it through eating without wincing. Thankfully, chewing was the only problem I had in terms of pain with spacers; the rest of the time when I wasn't eating or biting down, the pain felt like shifting teeth; something I always felt when I got a new Invisalign tray and what made me miss them dearly =[. Those trays, after all, had been with me throughout my 4 years of high school. When Dino told me on my spacer day to not wear them anymore, I actually went home and cried a bit because it was almost like saying good-bye to an old friend lol. Even now as I'm armed with metal and rubber bands, my last set of trays before the 4/12/08 disaster are still in my blue case in its usual place of honor on the kitchen counter next to my dad's coffeemaker (yeah weird place to put them but whatever lol) =].
Next entry... my b-day!
At first, I thought everyone on the internet was full of shit, there was no way that spacers could hurt that much. Right after the procedure and for a few hours afterward they barely hurt at all and I was thinking "WTF is everyone whining about?" until I got the last laugh trying to eat Boneless wings from Applebee's that my mom had brought home for dinner. It hurt! I mean, not really hurt; that's a strong word. It was we'll say "uncomfortable" to chew on my back molars for that whole week, which is bad for me because I use my back teeth a lot to eat because due to having half of a fake tooth for my front tooth (long story) I don't "bite" into foods with it. I was relegated to taking Advil before each meal just to make it through eating without wincing. Thankfully, chewing was the only problem I had in terms of pain with spacers; the rest of the time when I wasn't eating or biting down, the pain felt like shifting teeth; something I always felt when I got a new Invisalign tray and what made me miss them dearly =[. Those trays, after all, had been with me throughout my 4 years of high school. When Dino told me on my spacer day to not wear them anymore, I actually went home and cried a bit because it was almost like saying good-bye to an old friend lol. Even now as I'm armed with metal and rubber bands, my last set of trays before the 4/12/08 disaster are still in my blue case in its usual place of honor on the kitchen counter next to my dad's coffeemaker (yeah weird place to put them but whatever lol) =].
Next entry... my b-day!
Introduction Post/Overview of my Teeth-Aligning History
Hello Blogspot! =] As is customary for most people's first journal entries, I'm going to talk a little bit about myself as a person. My name is Andrea Drac and I'm 19 years old; 20 in August. I'm going into my second year of college and am studying to be a journalist. Reading and writing stories has been a passion of mine since the age of three. My other favorite pastimes include playing video games (I'm currently going up the ranks in Wii Fit!) and going online. Besides Facebook and Myspace, I'm a member of five forums (The Hidden Bookcase, BSC Boards, In the Spotlight, Sitcoms Online and FanForum) and have a Livejournal account. My favorite TV shows are I Love Lucy, The Facts of Life, Different Strokes, 7th Heaven, Little People Big World and Gossip Girl (Major Jenny/Nate shipper) and I love country and 80s music. I'm also a proud Sweet Valley and Baby-Sitters Club fan =].
Do you have a need to know more about me? Well if you do then too bad because this journal is not going to be about my incessant fangirl ramblings, various book/TV episode recaps and goal lists. I created this blogspot account for one reason and that is to document my journey through braces, which I received on Tuesday June 23rd 2009 at approximately 2:45 pm. My orthodontist, for anyone who's interested, is Dr. Dino Mantis of Mantis Dentistry in Calumet City. At first, I will be updating this blog daily with all the little different quirks I discover with my braces and then once they become "old hat", I will be updating only weekly (every Tuesday night) and after every appointment until the very end of my treatment. The one thing that I can't provide for this blog (yet, anyway) is pictures because I don't have a camera. I mean, I do, but it's a family digital camera and I don't think pictures of my teeth need to show up between birthday party pics or something lol. Maybe later on when I buy my own camera I'll be able to post pictures but for now anyone who's reading this will have to use their imaginations to see how far along I am lol. I'm fine with not posting pics anyway because I'm not totally in love with how my teeth look atm.
Anyway, a little overview of my history with crooked teeth/teeth straightening: I first started out with Invisalign back in November 2004, when I was a freshman in high school (still under the care of Dino Mantis; we went to him because he was the only one near our area who "specialized" in Invisalign). We also tried the traditional orthodontist route (Dino has an actual dentist office all his own; not like most ortho places where it's like the beauty parlor with the chairs and orthos lined up lmao) but ended up opting out because I was told for some odd reason that I swallowed wrong and had some weird condition called "orange peel" or something hahahaha. Thankfully, I was considered a candidate for Invisalign, which surprised me and my mom because my teeth (btw I was 15 when this all started, actually 14 going on 15 in the beginning) were extremely overcrowded and we weren't sure if plastic could actually work on my teeth but Dino assured us that it would work and showed us different computer models that showed what my teeth would look like when the process was done, an estimated 18 months (I'm not the brightest math wizard but I know now it's been beyond 18 months lmao).
And things went well in the beginning; the teeth were moving. However, it took way beyond 18 months due to certain detours such as slow-moving teeth, causing the trays to lag behind, laser gum removal and having to modify trays (i.e. start the process over) twice. One of the last straws with Invisalign happened on what should have been my last appointment day before going to get the "dots" (attachments) off of my trouble teeth (the ones that needed to be pulled down and focused on more when the trays shifted the teeth) and starting retainer fittings; April 14th 2008 (by this time I was a senior about to graduate from high school). My teeth really didn't look terrible; imo when you look back at the way they looked before invisalign, it was a major, major improvement. My bottom teeth were completely straight and the right (my right, your left) side of my top teeth were only a little bit "gappy" because it needed the last tray to fill in the last gaps. However, the left (your right) side of my top teeth was where the problem was. My left cainine (I call it a fang or shark tooth haha) had somehow stopped moving during the process and would not grow down anymore to make it even with the other teeth on that side, which were pretty straight. So basically, when I would put a front tray on, every tooth would be filled in and fitted except for that one shark tooth, where it left this big, ugly, plastic gap that was especially noticeable anytime I rinsed the tray out before eating or brushing (gross as it was I would rinse or brush the tray around that one spot so it would look filled in when putting it on). Dino explained this to me as if I didn't already know and suggested that we go ahead and put "brackets" (aka braces) on my top teeth only and free of charge, since according to him Invisalign failed for me. As if this wasn't bad enough, I had to sit in the chair while he lectured me about how this should have been done a year and a half ago and about what a big gap I had with that tooth =[. Worse yet, this was a 4:30 appointment and my mom wouldn't be picking me up for another hour because she got off at 5:00 so I had to tell her this on the phone while I sobbed about having to wear braces for graduation. Thankfully, after mom talked to Dino, she got him to agree having to put the braces on after graduation, during the summer, when I could get better used to them. At that time, estimated treatment time was four months.
However, Summer 2008 came and went and we ended up not doing a thing with going further into braces. With graduation, my cousin's wedding, and getting ready for college at PUC on my plate that summer, we were all busy and it wasn't until March 17th 2009, during my spring break, that we even went back to Dino to talk about the next steps for treatment. Now Dino had changed his tune slightly and said that estimated treatment time was now six months and would have to wear top and bottom brackets, even though my bottoms were straight, because I would need to wear rubber bands to correct my overbite (which I swear to this day came from Invisalign lol). We made plans to start the process in May, at the start of my summer vacation, but since braces day was the day after Memorial Day, Mom and I got Dino to switch it to June so that I could do spacers on June 16th 2009 at 3:30 pm and the teeth cleaning/braces on June 23rd 2009 at 1:00 pm (Mom was taking a half day of work that day).
And now I'm going to begin documenting! =] My first post will be about my spacers, even though that happened last week, because as I stated, I want a full documentation of my braces journey. I'm sorry if you all got bored with this entry; I do tend to go on a lot, even about nothing, but this was really cleansing for me to write. I will try to write more short entries in the future =].
Do you have a need to know more about me? Well if you do then too bad because this journal is not going to be about my incessant fangirl ramblings, various book/TV episode recaps and goal lists. I created this blogspot account for one reason and that is to document my journey through braces, which I received on Tuesday June 23rd 2009 at approximately 2:45 pm. My orthodontist, for anyone who's interested, is Dr. Dino Mantis of Mantis Dentistry in Calumet City. At first, I will be updating this blog daily with all the little different quirks I discover with my braces and then once they become "old hat", I will be updating only weekly (every Tuesday night) and after every appointment until the very end of my treatment. The one thing that I can't provide for this blog (yet, anyway) is pictures because I don't have a camera. I mean, I do, but it's a family digital camera and I don't think pictures of my teeth need to show up between birthday party pics or something lol. Maybe later on when I buy my own camera I'll be able to post pictures but for now anyone who's reading this will have to use their imaginations to see how far along I am lol. I'm fine with not posting pics anyway because I'm not totally in love with how my teeth look atm.
Anyway, a little overview of my history with crooked teeth/teeth straightening: I first started out with Invisalign back in November 2004, when I was a freshman in high school (still under the care of Dino Mantis; we went to him because he was the only one near our area who "specialized" in Invisalign). We also tried the traditional orthodontist route (Dino has an actual dentist office all his own; not like most ortho places where it's like the beauty parlor with the chairs and orthos lined up lmao) but ended up opting out because I was told for some odd reason that I swallowed wrong and had some weird condition called "orange peel" or something hahahaha. Thankfully, I was considered a candidate for Invisalign, which surprised me and my mom because my teeth (btw I was 15 when this all started, actually 14 going on 15 in the beginning) were extremely overcrowded and we weren't sure if plastic could actually work on my teeth but Dino assured us that it would work and showed us different computer models that showed what my teeth would look like when the process was done, an estimated 18 months (I'm not the brightest math wizard but I know now it's been beyond 18 months lmao).
And things went well in the beginning; the teeth were moving. However, it took way beyond 18 months due to certain detours such as slow-moving teeth, causing the trays to lag behind, laser gum removal and having to modify trays (i.e. start the process over) twice. One of the last straws with Invisalign happened on what should have been my last appointment day before going to get the "dots" (attachments) off of my trouble teeth (the ones that needed to be pulled down and focused on more when the trays shifted the teeth) and starting retainer fittings; April 14th 2008 (by this time I was a senior about to graduate from high school). My teeth really didn't look terrible; imo when you look back at the way they looked before invisalign, it was a major, major improvement. My bottom teeth were completely straight and the right (my right, your left) side of my top teeth were only a little bit "gappy" because it needed the last tray to fill in the last gaps. However, the left (your right) side of my top teeth was where the problem was. My left cainine (I call it a fang or shark tooth haha) had somehow stopped moving during the process and would not grow down anymore to make it even with the other teeth on that side, which were pretty straight. So basically, when I would put a front tray on, every tooth would be filled in and fitted except for that one shark tooth, where it left this big, ugly, plastic gap that was especially noticeable anytime I rinsed the tray out before eating or brushing (gross as it was I would rinse or brush the tray around that one spot so it would look filled in when putting it on). Dino explained this to me as if I didn't already know and suggested that we go ahead and put "brackets" (aka braces) on my top teeth only and free of charge, since according to him Invisalign failed for me. As if this wasn't bad enough, I had to sit in the chair while he lectured me about how this should have been done a year and a half ago and about what a big gap I had with that tooth =[. Worse yet, this was a 4:30 appointment and my mom wouldn't be picking me up for another hour because she got off at 5:00 so I had to tell her this on the phone while I sobbed about having to wear braces for graduation. Thankfully, after mom talked to Dino, she got him to agree having to put the braces on after graduation, during the summer, when I could get better used to them. At that time, estimated treatment time was four months.
However, Summer 2008 came and went and we ended up not doing a thing with going further into braces. With graduation, my cousin's wedding, and getting ready for college at PUC on my plate that summer, we were all busy and it wasn't until March 17th 2009, during my spring break, that we even went back to Dino to talk about the next steps for treatment. Now Dino had changed his tune slightly and said that estimated treatment time was now six months and would have to wear top and bottom brackets, even though my bottoms were straight, because I would need to wear rubber bands to correct my overbite (which I swear to this day came from Invisalign lol). We made plans to start the process in May, at the start of my summer vacation, but since braces day was the day after Memorial Day, Mom and I got Dino to switch it to June so that I could do spacers on June 16th 2009 at 3:30 pm and the teeth cleaning/braces on June 23rd 2009 at 1:00 pm (Mom was taking a half day of work that day).
And now I'm going to begin documenting! =] My first post will be about my spacers, even though that happened last week, because as I stated, I want a full documentation of my braces journey. I'm sorry if you all got bored with this entry; I do tend to go on a lot, even about nothing, but this was really cleansing for me to write. I will try to write more short entries in the future =].
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