
Gosh, it's been forever since I've posted. Right now we've been working on closing extraction gaps. The gaps in the lower arch are almost closed. I've got about 1mm on the right and 2 on the left. It's hard to believe that teeth once fit in there! On the top, we couldn't pull back all the front teeth at once because it was squishing my palate against the Nance. So he decided to just move the canines back first. The canines are just about there. The right one is all the way back, and the left one has about 1 mm to go. I saw the dentist yesterday, and they were concerned about irritation of the tissue under the Nance. So the ortho agreed that it can go!
In 3 weeks, I'm going in to get the Nance taken out, which means that I'll also be getting new molar bands, because it's welded to my current ones. Just for fun, I'll be getting a TPA in place of the Nance, but that will be a lot smaller (the ortho called it a g-bar, but as far as I can tell, it's just a TPA). Then we can start moving those incisors backwards.
Oh, and the wonderful man also gave me a lovely parting gift at yesterday's appointment. He looked my arches over and decided that the upper arch should have a little more curve to it. So he pulled out my archwire and bent it a bit. He might as well have just punched me in the mouth...
So, has anybody had a Nance and then had it removed? He said that I can expect the skin on the palate where it's been sitting to be "a bit tender" so I'm wondering exactly how bad it is and how long it lasts. I'm getting it out on a Tuesday, and I have to lecture again on Thursday. Any advice from somebody who's done this would be appreciated.