Brace Yourself for the Sallymonster! (updated)

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#1 Post by **thesallymonster** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 5:10 pm

Hello everyone, I've posted on Metal Mouth Forum several times, but now that I finally have a brace day I've decided to start my own "braces story"!

My name is Sally and I'm 19 years old. I grew up in the Seattle area, but I moved to Portland when I was 18 and have been living there since. I'm a student majoring in history, and I work for my school calling alumni and fundraising. I play rugby for my school's team and I also love to ski.

My teeth are actually not bad-looking at all, they actually appear quite straight except for one spot of very mild crowding on my top front incisors. I'm getting braces because I'm hoping they will help improve a couple of health issues. I have a very deep bite and a moderate overjet, and my midline's off. My bottom front teeth bite into (and bite food into) the gum that runs between my two upper front teeth, causing the gum to occasionally get rather swollen and sore (it's also loose at one spot and I think I may have bitten off a tiny part of it once). I have some wear on my bottom front teeth. I also have TMJ symptoms: my jaw clicks and gets really sore, and when I was younger it used to lock closed.

I was the TMJ problems that convinced me to go in for a free consultation at a local ortho last October. I had become quite convinced over the years that my bad bite was part of the cause of my jaw issues. This ortho took a look at my teeth and told her assistant what sounded like a bunch of codes. I finally asked her what the numbers meant and she told me that I had an overbite and that I could either have a Herbst appliance, extractions, or jaw surgery. She was really nice but didn't really explain things very well, so I left rather confused but eager to finally fix my teeth.

I spent the next month and a half putting away money for a down payment and thinking about treatment. Finally I made an appointment for a second opinion, since everyone here recommended that. A couple days later, I made an appointment with a third ortho who was recommended to me here on Archwired. The second ortho, after looking at my teeth and poking and prodding at my jaw till it was sore, told me that I would either have to have surgery or accept a compromise.

Well, I didn't want surgery so I went to my third consult. I felt comfortable there right away. The office was large and modern, the assistants were so kind and wonderful, they gave me everything written down whether I wanted it or not, and the ortho himself was friendly and took the time to get to know me a bit. He recommended the same treatment options as the first ortho with some variations. Best of all, this office was the most affordable. I chose this ortho on the spot and had records done right then and there.

So, after a couple of weeks out of town, working out a couple of insurance issues, and scheduling a dental cleaning, I am getting spacers on the 30th and upper braces on February 6th. Lower braces will go on within a couple months, and a Herbst Appliance will be put in about six months later and stay in for about a year. My estimated treatment time is more or less 31 months.

Okay, that's all for the first chapter. I will post "before" pics and other info about my treatment in the near future. Enjoy!

#2 Post by **platinum** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:23 pm

Cool!

We have similar kind of bite problems. But in your case they are starting from the top

I will get my lower braces on 26th of january... and an upper retainer.

Good luck!

#3 Post by **thesallymonster** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 3:54 pm

I know I haven't updated this, or even been on Archwired for awhile, and I'm sorry to keep you all waiting. I started second semester classes this week and I've been overwhelmed with homework. But I'm back!

I am getting spacers on Tuesday! Eeek! Time has sure flown by fast since I made my appointment two weeks ago! A couple days ago I suddenly realized how soon this was, and now I'm totally freaked! Sometimes I wonder if I should call my ortho and back out while I still can. I suppose everyone feels this way right before getting braced. . . but still, it doesn't make the feeling any less real. However, I've already put money into records, already told all my friends that I'm getting braced (though I haven't told my family, only discussed the possibility of getting braces with them which they didn't support). Right now I'm worried about all the food I won't be able to eat. . . I'm a picky eater, and many of my favorite foods, like popcorn, are no-nos. I'm also worried about people's reactions, I know I should not worry what other people think, but. . . well. . .

But today I opened up my new digital camera and finally took some pictures of my teeth! I always thought my teeth looked decent, but seeing them close up in photos made me realize how crooked they really are! The pics alone have provided me some encouragement, I mean, as my bite improves, the best side effect will be a perfect smile, and even though I didn't do this for cosmetics, that hollywood grin will sure be nice!

First the teeth themselves:

Now the overbite/overjet:

Lower Arch:

Upper Arch (I apologize for the poor quality):

I'm going to be a full metal mouth, so what lig colors do you guys think I should I start out with? I'm thinking I'm gonna go with either lavendar or baby blue. I know I can change the colors every adjustment, but it's still a big deal for me (I'm totally psyched about having colors!). I want only one color to start (I'm getting just top braces at first, remember). Any suggestions?

#4 Post by **thesallymonster** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 4:08 pm

ok, I had posted pictures, but I removed them because they came out way too big despite the fact that I went back to photobucket, resized them, and re-entered the image code. why do the pics keep coming out huge? someone please help!

#5 Post by **KJNELLAMORE** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 8:35 pm

Sometimes PB takes a little bit to catch up. You may find imageshack.us a bit easier to resize in.

#6 Post by **thesallymonster** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 9:24 pm

I re-uploaded all of the pics and they're up now. Thanks for the advice, KJNELLAMORE, I did try imageshack but I think I like photobucket better despite this little fiasco.

#7 Post by **taylorhl25** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 5:06 am

Good luck with your treatment, I too am at the start of mine and have my brace fitting on 27th February and will be a full metal mouth too but I am having Damons on upper and lower and am lucky to only have a 12 month sentence!

I was also really concerned about what people would think and a few days after my consult when reality hit, I had big doubts but chatted with people on this site and my friends and family and I realised that I was the only one concerned about it and I know that I can cope and in the end I am doing something great for myself and life is too short to be ashamed of something

#8 Post by **thesallymonster** » Sun Jan 28, 2007 10:56 pm

Thanks for the encouragement everyone who's been responding!

Yesterday I spent tons of money on stuff relating to the spacers and braces. I bought a Dentakit, a charger and new brush-heads for my Sonicare, a made-for-braces sports mouthguard for rugby, a Waterpik Ultra, and enough soft food to feed an army! (including yogurt smoothies, protein shakes, tapioca pudding, cinnamon applesauce, tomato and chiken noodle condensed soup, and Spaghetti-O's. I already had mac 'n cheese, real spaghetti, top ramen, and jasmine rice).

I really want to go see a movie right now, not just because there are a lot of good movies out right now, but because I want to eat extra-buttery movie theater popcorn for the last time before my spacers go in on Tuesday! Unfortunately I'm really busy with school these days, and so are all of my friends.

I took a pic of myself smiling with my digital camera and had some fun with Microsoft Paint. I photo-shopped brackets onto my top teeth and drew a curved line thru the brackets for an archwire. For the first time, I saw myself in braces, and I don't even have them on yet! I'm going to look about 14, lol. I experimented a little, putting different colors around the brackets to see how different colored ligs will look on me. I think I will start off with lavendar or light purple, it looked best on me I think. I saved a pic of me "wearing" lavendar braces and I can't help but look at it a lot!

Anyway the biggest news is I'm Getting Spacers in Two Days!! Tomorrow I'm going to the dentist, a dentist I've never been to before, for a pre-braces check-up and cleaning. I decided to go with a local dentist for a variety of reasons, most of all convenience. I'm beginning to get really anxious, this is all so unbelievable!

#9 Post by **joney** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 8:32 am

Hi Sally

Good luck with the spacers on Tuesday. Your teeth look good already, my daughter had a similar problem with biting into her upper gum which has been sorted out, she's been in braces since August 06.

My daughter brought home popcorn the other week and I said "we can't eat that". She replied that she was going to eat it so I tentatively joined her. Since then we have been eating popcorn whenever we fancy it. I've found that if you remove any hard kernels that you find that popcorn is fine. So don't give up the popcorn if you like it.

Regards
Joney

#10 Post by **thesallymonster** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 7:27 pm

I got spacers today!

But let's start with yesterday first. I had an appointment with my new dentist for a cleaning and check-up. That went really well (no cavities!). I told the hygienist and dentist that I was getting braces, so the hygienist made sure to clean them so that they were ready. She also checked for any signs of perio problems, something my previous dentist and hygienists never did. The hygienist had had braces herself when she was younger and told me that its "totally worth it", which, of course, made me happy about my decision. I left with a clean bill of dental health and all systems "Go".

I was so nervous and anxious last night I couldn't bring myself to concentrate on important things (like homework). I couldn't sleep even though I had to get up at 6AM this morning for my 8AM appointment (I live 1/2 hour away from my orthodontist if the traffic's decent).

I left my apartment at 7AM this morning, giving myself lots of extra time, just in case their was a traffic jam, as this is rush hour. There was some traffic, of course, but I still got to the ortho's office 20 minutes early. I listened to the Beatles in my car for awhile before finally heading in. I was still 5 minutes early, but the assistant was ready, my chart in her hand.

The assistant led me to a dentist's chair and told me I was getting eight spacers, four on bottom and four on top. I asked her if I was going to keep the spacers in my bottoms after the top braces were put on, but she said that I would be getting bottom molar bands (but no brackets or archwires) on the same day as when my top braces would be put on.

The process of putting in the spacers wasn't as painful and horrible as I'd thought it would be. The assistant put each one in with using floss (that had an interesting aftertaste of a mix of mint and bubble gum), and what appeared to be a piece of styrofoam (but could've been something else). She started with the bottoms first (she said the bottoms are more painless than the tops) and did the tops next. It hurt a bit as she put them it, but the pain would immediately subside as they went into place with a "snap". The whole process took less than a half hour.

My back teeth were sore off and on on the drive home, but only mildly uncomfortable as I started my first class today at school. I even drank a strawberry-banana-orange smoothie during class! My teeth were feeling so well that I attempted to eat pizza for lunch in the school cafeteria. What a mistake!

Chewing made my back teeth so sore that I had to take tiny bites and chew on my front teeth, which took forever, and I didn't even get close to finishing my food. I decided to get a banana, which I ate all of, but not comfortably.

My mouth started to get really sore during my class after lunch, most notably after I sneezed and my jaws accidentally snapped together mid-sneeze. Owwwww. . . My mouth has been pretty sore since, although there has been moments when I didn't feel any pain. I skipped rugby practice today because I didn't feel like I could handle it the way my mouth was.

A little while ago I made an attempt at eating some ice cream. I succeeded, but my tender back teeth hurt just biting into this incredibly cold, soft food. Right now I just want to reach into my mouth and get rid of these things between my teeth! Between the soreness and soft foods I feel like I just had my wisdom teeth out all over again. I can't wait to get the braces just to be relieved of these spacers! Even though I know that the braces will bring a new kind of pain. . . only 7 more days!

Well, before this chapter becomes a novel, here's pics of the spacers! The top arch pic is fuzzy again, I seem to have trouble taking pics of my top arch for some reason.

Rage31: Thanks!

KK: Thank you for all your wonderful support! Did I ever mention how much support means to me (and countless others on this site?)

Joney: I imagine I might occasionally cheat on the no-popcorn rule, I just love popcorn so much! But I'm going to try not to because I know it can damage braces, and I'm paying good money for these!

linda21: I can't wait to be able to freely eat buttered popcorn, either! Thanks for the support!

And thanks to everyone else whose been replying!

Mon Feb 05, 2007 12:37 am

Two days until b-day!

I'm glad to say I can finally eat fairly normally with those spacers. . . but boy were they painful! The first night I tried to floss (not where the spacers are of course!) and omg, the awful pain, especially when I flossed between the bicuspids!

Brushing, luckily, was a bit better. I could only eat soft foods, which, let me tell you, gets old really fast. I hated watching my friends eat real food in our school cafeteria while I ate oatmeal and drank my vanilla protein shake that I've been supplementing my lunches with (it doesn't taste very good, but it does a great job of keeping me from getting hungry for awhile).

Yesterday I went over to my neighbor's apartment for dinner and was happy to discover that I was able to eat pineapple, chicken, and spaghetti that was being served.

Today I even ate tortilla chips and salsa while watching the Super Bowl with my roommates. I chewed small pieces mostly with my front teeth, and it wasn't too bad.

My new Dentakit, Waterpik, and braces sports mouthguard all arrived on Thursday. I'm saving the Dentakit for my braces, but I'm liking the Waterpik Ultra so far. I only use it on pressure setting "2" so far, but it sort of soothes my mouth a lot after the horrors of flossing with spacers. I went back to rugby practice, but I don't like the braces mouthguard too much, it's bulky and uncomfortable, but it's made for braces so I suppose it might get better when the braces are put in on Tuesday.

Two more days until braces, like I said before. I'm starting to get nervous and anxious again, but the spacers are in and there's no turning back now. Even though the spacers aren't causing me much pain anymore, it'll still be great to have them out, I'm so tired of them!

KK, I actually hadn't done the salt water rinses before, I hate the taste of saltwater and had kept putting it off.

I have since learned from another thread on here that you don't even need to use very much salt, so I tried it, and it wasn't too bad!

I've added salt water rinsing to my nightly cleaning routine. Unfortunately I'm a very busy, on-the-go person so I don't get to rinse more than that, but I figure, once a day is better than nothing, right?

Tue Feb 06, 2007 12:13 am

Only 9 more hours to go!

Bad news though. . . I'm sick.

I'm coughing and coughing and have a sore throat and my mouth is all dry and tastes bad and my nose is a bit stuffed up. Turns out a lot of other people at school have similar symptoms, looks I picked up this crud at school.

Looks like I'm getting braced while I feel sick.

Hopefully I won't get a fever. I'm thinking of taking a couple tylenol tomorrow morning just in case, and after all, it'll help with the pain anyway, right?

My car is also out of service (a belt went bad and I need to replace it), so I'm taking the bus to the ortho's, which turns a half hour trip to an hour and a half trip, which means I'm getting up even earlier than originally planned for my 8AM appointment tomorrow! I'm not a morning person, and being sick just makes getting up early even worse.

Yeah, I'm having a lot of bad luck for my brace day. I'm trying to stay positive though, I really feel as though braces will be worth it in the end. Did I mention that I'm starting out with lavendar ligs?

Well, I'm going to try to get some sleep, so I will see you all on the other side! Next time I post, I'll be braced!

#13 Post by **labyrinth** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:22 am

I'm getting my braces on tomorrow too, but my appt is at 11am so I get to sleep in. I'm meant to go into work afterwards, but if they hurt I might treat myself to a sickie, and ice cream!

I didn't get spacers...I didn't even think of that until now.

Hope it all goes well.

Tue Feb 06, 2007 10:14 pm

Well everyone, I'm officially braced on my uppers!

I'm also still sick.

I took two tylenol early this morning (alas, I had a fever, but the meds did kick in) before embarking on a very long bus journey towards my ortho's office in Beaverton. I managed to get there about 5-10 minutes early, but they were already ready for me. I brushed my teeth at the brushing station and took one last look at my teeth. . .

First, the assistant took my spacers out. Ahhhh. . . relief, but it was short-lived, because next came the molar bands. I got bands on my first molars on both top and bottom. The assistant had to fit them, which hurt a bit, then the ortho came in to check the fit. Then came the gluing of the bands. Glue got on my tongue and it was the worst tasting stuff imaginable!

It was sour and vile and icky! After what seemed like forever the assistant finally rinsed my mouth a little with water and all was better.

The assistant put lip spreaders on me and put some green stuff on my non-banded uppers to clean and prep them. The ortho came back in and together they put on the bonding glue and I could see them handle tiny metal brackets in tweezers as one by one they went on my teeth. The ortho tweaked each one and checked them all over. Then I had to lay there on the chair with the lip spreaders still on for several minutes to let the bonding glue activate and dry.

When the assistant returned she finally took out those lip spreaders. The brackets, while they had looked tiny, felt HUGE under my now-floppy lips. She proceeded to fit the archwire onto my brackets, and on went the lavendar ligs I had picked. There was a ton of pressure but no real pain. She gave me a goody bag packed with useful items, such as wax, travel toothbrush, floss threader, list of foods to avoid (surprisingly there's not that many!), and sent me on my way after I made an appointment for my first adjustment in six weeks.

My teeth have not really been that sore so far, nothing like the spacers, although they are a bit tender in some spots. The brackets are really uncomfortable under my lips and cheeks, though. Not painful, per se, just weird. I do have a couple canker sores already in the back of my mouth, and I keep biting my cheek while eating (That was while eating top ramen). I tried wax, but the wax the ortho gave me doesn't stick very well, so I used the wax from my Dentakit, which was much better. It still didn't help very much, though (it did a little). It's mainly the little hooks on most of the brackets that bother me right now, as well as the buccal brackets that are attached to my molar bands.

Also, I have to admit that I look like a twelve-year-old Ugly Betty! (and I don't even watch that show!). I'm beginning to wonder why I ever wanted metal and not ceramic. Oh well, decision's been made. I hardly opened my mouth the rest of the day (I had to go to campus to turn in an assignment), I was too embarrassed. I wasn't out of my apartment much anyway due to being sick, and I didn't go to class. If my roommates noticed them, they didn't say anything, which makes me feel better. Tomorrow if I'm feeling better I plan to at least show my friends.

Well, here's what you all have been waiting for. . . pics!

labyrinth lucky you not having to deal with spacers! I hope everything went well for you today, keep me posted!

KK, I did gargle with the salt water in my throat a bit last night, it did soothe it a bit, thanks!

#15 Post by **samantha_lou** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 10:25 pm

Looks good Sally, I really like the colour of your ligs! I have pink on my lowers at the moment - but I'm thinking I may go for the lavendar/lilac next time round. Hope that your teeth aren't feeling too sore, mine were pretty sore the day after, but are feeling much better now.