If you want to share the detailed saga of your braces story, this is the place to do it. You can use this forum as a braces journal, editing and updating your posts as your treatment goes on. Remember to also visit the main ArchWired.com site for additional stories from other readers!
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Your teeth look wonderful! And your gums!!! As someone with gum recession on my bottom teeth, I envy your beautiful thick gums! . I know that's super weird, but you should be as proud of your gums as your teeth
•Braces placed August 14, 2014
•Deband November 11, 2015
•Permanent retainer top and bottom
•Essix retainers top and bottom 16 hr/day for a year and then nightly afterwards.
Wow, I can't believe it's just a day short of a year since I last posted! My braces journey just got really boring and I was just busy with other stuff so I got lazy with my updates. But I figured now was as good as any time to post because I'm getting my braces off on Friday! Which is funny because that day is Dec 18th and Dec 18th was the last day I posted here lol
Anyway, my original sentence estimate was 12-18 months. Assuming everything goes to plan on Friday, I will have had my braces on for 18 months, 2 weeks, and 1 day. I would have preferred closer to 12 months obviously, but 18.5 months is pretty amazing with zero extractions (I had several consultations with orthos that wanted to pull 4 teeth) and way better compared to some of the 24-30 month estimates I got. I somehow got lucky and didn't need to wear elastics either like I read about in a lot of stories here
I currently have a permanent/fixed retainer on my bottom teeth. It feels weird and it's a pain to floss. But I'll deal with it at the cost of having straight teeth lol. I'll be getting clear/Essix retainers once my braces are removed.
My teeth need a lot of cosmetic work done (which should be done by next month) so I'm debating on whether or not to post a photo once my braces are removed or to wait until I get all the cosmetic stuff done. I guess I'll see how I feel about my teeth once the braces are off. Man I CANNOT wait to eat without food getting stuck in my braces. That and easy flossing (except the teeth with the fixed retainer) are what I'm looking forward to the most lol
TheProfessor wrote:Congratulations! Your teeth look really great!!!
What kind of retainers do you have and how are they?
Thank you!!
I have a fixed retainer on my lower, front 6 teeth. It was weird at first, but I'm pretty used to it now. Food doesn't get caught in it too much. I'm getting the hang of flossing with it since I only need to thread the floss through it once and can just slide the floss over to each tooth. I get my clear retainers on Wednesday. So I've been doing my best to enjoy a brace-free AND retainer-free life as I know things will change once I get my clear retainers lol. I cannot tell you how awesome it is to just eat and not have to immediately use a water flosser after. And flossing is a breeeeeze and actually fun to do lol
Congratulations! What a great result! I'm glad you came back to update us, as I hadn't seen your story before. Love, love, love these success stories -- so encouraging to those of us muddling through mid-treatment!
So I got my clear retainers today for top and bottom aaaand I don't like them. They affect my speech and they make my molars hit when talking. I'm extremely lucky that I'm not on a 24/7 schedule. I only have to wear them at night for 8 hours, phew! That will definitely make daily life easier as far as eating and talking.
I had a cleaning on Monday and a gingivectomy on all my front teeth. My gums are still healing, but I'lll post photos once everything's not gross looking. Next week I'm getting Zoom whitening