The Time Has Come

[plugnickel69]

Jerseygirl, welcome to the club! Now three months in and thinking back, there were a number of reasons I delayed treatment. First, while I was wearing away my lower canines, it was a very slow process, and my dentist's solution, shared by some orthos I consulted, was to grind away more of my canines so they no longer made contact. Made no sense to me as I knew my teeth would continue on their slow journey to new positions and the grinding away would only be a temporary solution. As my bite was functional they did not push me to go ahead with treatment. As an aside, I have the feeling that many dentists give little thought to orthodontics unless cases are severe and portend future tooth breakage and loss.

Secondly, cost was a consideration, and the changes in the maximums for flexible spending accounts in the US gave impetus for me to begin in 2012.

Thirdly, I did have a concern about how my professional and social life would be affected. For those contemplating braces but fearful of professional or social consequences, in my experience, the fear is totally unfounded. Now 14 weeks in, only one person, as stated in a previous post, has ever commented unless I brought up the subject. I think most people don't pay attention or don't care. And we live in an adult world where most people act like adults. Those of us contemplating orthodontics or having braces have a warped, often obsessive, view of teeth, and we think everybody else looks at everyone's mouth the same way we do.

Lastly, the only real difficult part of the experience for me has been eating. Chewing is at times difficult, uncomfortable, or painful. My bite changes, sometimes daily. Food gets caught all over, though for me it has improved as my teeth have been straightening out. Hard to eat without constantly using your tongue to pull out unwanted food from crevasses. Cleaning after eating is a necessary ritual. I have to give a plug to flossfish. That ingenious tool cut my floss time to 5 minutes. Throw out your threaders and get some of these!

Best of luck to you!

[Jerseygirl]

Hi there - thank for the friendly welcome!

I share all of your concerns as well - though I did have my dentist recommend I get braces every 6 months when I visited him. No one really tried to equalize my bite the way they did with yours. Maybe they could tell it would do no good - I think my teeth are tilted more which is causing the problem.

My professional life is also a concern - I don't have to do any public speaking but I am constantly talking to people at my job and I am actually MORE self conscious then I ever imagined I would be. I'm a single mid 40's woman and my appearance, well I'm VERY VERY concerned about it. I can see how my face looks different, my lips look different, I look different when I speak, smile, laugh - and I don't like any of it. And the last few days it's as if my upper lip has begun to protrude even more. Do you think it is actually possible that my teeth have tipped out in one week? I can't imagine that could be the case. But they felt easier to maneuver in my mouth when doing anything, initially, than they do now.

Eating? Forget about it. It is not enjoyable in the least - everything I eat, accept yogurt or ice cream, hurts. And it is just plain HARD to chew. I don't remember it being this hard as a teenager but I guess i've just forgotten! Drinking a glass of white wine is still pleasureable however, thank goodness!!!

What is this flossfish you mean? I will have to Google it. I use the threaders which I bought myself. My orth gave me these little gagets with floss already attached that are supposed to fit under your wires, but they are useless for me and do not work.

How long will you be in braces?

Best of luck to you too - I'll look forward to see how you are coming along.

Thanks again.

[plugnickel69]

Hey Jerseygirl,

I'll try to answer your questions one by one. I never let my dentist try to fix my bite, as the procedure would have been to drill away tooth surfaces until there was no longer contact--but these were teeth that were moving despite contact. Made no sense to me.

Professional life: No problem whatsoever. I do public speaking. I often meet one-on-one. Nobody cares or says anything. Fortunately, I'm long and happily married, so dating isn't an issue, but i don't believe it's an issue anyway. There's no reason to put your life on hold because of braces. Go for it!

How fast can your teeth move? Real fast. My teeth were always so close together that a couldn't floss effectively until they invented Glide. I used to shread and break the floss. The hygienists used to curse under their breath. In a very short time as my teeth got into line, spaces began to appear top and bottom, and were growing. So I asked my ortho point blank, when are you going to begin closing these spaces? "Next time." So the next time I was sure to remind him and power chains were places. My upper spaces closed within a week, my lowers still have some gaps five weeks later. By the way, power chains were absolutely painless for me and made my lowers more comfortable as I stopped biting the inside of my lower lip area.

Yes, eating can be a pain. Usually I have no pain, but sometimes it hurts somewhat to chew. It can change daily. Ate a bagel the other day, but it was not exactly a comfortable experience. Food getting trapped is a concern, but it is improving. I've been able to brush when necessary in public restrooms. If I think someone is going to come in, I just do it in a stall. I eat out in restaurants alot, but it is no more a problem than eating at home. I do agree, I have little memory of pain with braces as a teenager except when the archwire was first placed on my upper teeth. I also never remember food getting stuck as being a problem, and do not remember brushing much more than twice a day. Must have been disgusting!

By all means google flossfish. You can even see a video on how to use it. Took me just over three minutes to floss last night, and I wasn't going for speed.

How long will I be in braces? I guess as long as it takes. My estimate was 1-3 years. How's that for pinning things down? They seem to be moving along pretty well. No problems. I surmise that getting the roots uprighted and parallel will take some time. Teeth are like icebergs. The tip may look okay, but you may not know what lurks beneath. My ortho never used x-rays fifty years ago. He only seemed to care that the what could be seen was aligned.

Good luck!

[plugnickel69]

Four months in and noticing that my upper teeth seem to move faster than my lowers including rotating canines, uprighting pre-molars, and closing spaces with power chains. I assume this is normal and has to do with the length of the roots. Do others have a similar experience?

Bite seems to change on a daily basis, but even though I'm now close to edge-to-edge at rest, somehow I'm able to chew properly on my molars without difficulty.

I've also noticed that it's getting easier to eat as far as food getting caught in all the nooks and crannies. A little straightening goes a long way to help with this problem.

Fortunately still no pain. Lucky with that.

[xanidu2012]

Alright!! Way to go plugnickel69 I'm 50 and this is the 2nd time for me. I felt as you very self-conscious mostly because of my age. It worked out that when I got braced up 5/8/12 I was so quiet and closed-mouthed. My husband encouraged me to get out but I didn't want to. He suggested we go shopping. We went to kmart and there was only one line open and low and behold the cashier has full metal braces and lavendar ligs just like me and she was just smiling and laughing. She encouraged me and told me not to be self conscious and it has nothing to do with age. I finally broke down and showed my kids (5) they were all hooping and hollering and saying "alright mom" "cool" it made my day. So now I smile and if people look at me like I'm that's their problem not mine. Hurray for the metal mouths. Keep us posted on your progress.

[Jerseygirl]

Thanks for answering all my questions!!! I've begun to adjust to eating - avoiding things that are just too difficult to chew. Eating does take longer and I have one tooth in particular that feels like it will pop out of my mouth each time I hit it with my tongue or bite on it with food - it has moved quite a bit. Other than that - I'm doing well. I'm not crazy about how they 'look' but who is? And I don't care at this point.

I'm almost one month in - bottom teeth always feel very tight with pressure - uppers have moved more and don't feel as tight at all.

Great to hear about your progress!