Photos of Jet from Florida, USA

Jet is 23 years old, and lives in Florida with her husband and two German Shepherds. She began seriously considering orthodontic treatment about 4 months ago, although it's something she'd thought about doing for a long time.

Jet says, "I've got some cosmetic reasons for getting braces, although my main hope is to ease jaw pain due to a poor bite. While I was looking through some photographs to include with this write-up, I realized that not a single one of them showed me smiling and showing my teeth. Not even my wedding photos! I suppose that's quite typical of orthodontic patients, though.

"I've got a deep overbite, some crowding in the front lower teeth, and one of my upper incisors is out of place. I'll be getting my wisdom teeth extracted during the course of my treatment, and may have to have a bicuspid extraction along the way, too. I chose metal brackets for top and bottom, and I've got metallic blue elastic ligatures. I've had bonding agent applied to two of my upper molars.  This serves the purpose of keeping my teeth from fully coming together. If allowed to bite normally, my front teeth would snap the brackets on the bottom teeth right off. If all goes as planned, my treatment should take 18 months. I've been lucky in that I haven't needed spacers or bands. I'm currently in week 2 of treatment, so I'm sure I'll have many more surprises ahead of me ::grin::

"I'm looking forward to having a straight smile, and I can already tell the difference in my bite. While it's a little frustrating to have to learn to chew with limited capacity, the tension in my jaw has already been eased, and I haven't been grinding my teeth at night. I'm still looking forward to my first adjustment, but I don't think I'll ever regret having put the time, money, and effort in to this endeavor. I'm already smiling more than I ever did before :)."

Jet's teeth before braces

Jet's teeth 6 months into treatment. She has power chains and rectangular arch wires added on top and bottom, and elastics on both sides. Jet says, "I still have a lot of alignment of the upper midline to correct, and the spaces between my lower incisors are closing up well."

Jet just recently finished her treatment, and now she reveals her new smile! She says, "After two years, I  got my braces off this morning. The feeling of naked teeth was something I thought I was prepared for after reading the many stories  on the message boards, but it was weirder than I could have ever  imagined. Slimy doesn't even begin to describe the way my 'new' teeth felt. As odd as it was though, I was ecstatic to be free of the metal."

Congrats, Jet!