I am the other me's Journal (2nd adj 10/13/08, new pix pg3)

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#16 Post by **iamtheotherme** » Thu Aug 21, 2008 5:43 am

Yesterday (Wednesday), I went in for my appointment to reapply the bracket that popped off the first day (Tuesday). They said that my appointment was actually for Thursday, but they'd take me anyway. Lucky for me, because it's not a trivial drive for me to get there. The semantics of what "tomorrow" means when creating a schedule "today - Tuesday" is a whole other story.

The bracket that popped was on my upper left lateral, so she had to remove the ligs from 6 teeth to get the wire out. I was not prepared for how that felt. I'm pretty sore what with it being the second day, so the pressure from all the ligs on/ligs off was eye-watering. The assistant doing the work has braces herself, so she was kind enough to let me rest between replacing each lig.

I had a little meltdown in the car on the way home. The root of my dental phobia is pain that isn't in my control, so this incident didn't help much. It's a darned good thing that I'm as sore as I am, because I'd seriously consider having them all taken off if I didn't think it would hurt so much.

The frosting on my crisis of faith cake was when I brushed last night and the bracket on the temporary crown fell off. It gave zero resistance; it was like it melted off. Sigh. We're on vacation as of tomorrow, and we need to leave by noon, so I don't know if I'll get in the office in time to fix it.

Any encouraging words are most welcome. I'm scared to death of how the first adjustment is going to go and whether I'll be able to handle it.

#17 Post by **BracedVeryLate** » Thu Aug 21, 2008 10:38 pm

Hi I am
hang in there!! I was pretty shocked also how much the changing of the ligs hurt at my first adjustment. You might want to take an Advil before you go if you are worried about the pain. But don't worry too much, at my last adjustment - the second one, it barely hurt, even the changing of the nasty little powerchain on my bottom two teeth was easy.

I think the initial movement of all those teeth is pretty painful, and it gets less and less painful with time.

#18 Post by **iamtheotherme** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 3:07 pm

Well, we're back from our travels, but still off work until Tuesday, yay! Taking a vacation right after getting braces was a great idea, even if I hadn't planned it that way. It kept me distracted while getting over those first few tough days.

We ran down to the ortho the morning that we left. They reattached the bracket to the temporary crown with staples or some kind of atomic glue or something. It's stayed put so far (knock wood) and I was glad to have it taken care of before we left.

I'm chewing pretty much anything I want now. I never even depended on liquid stuff that much, just started out on soft chew stuff like pasta. However, I'm not really biting much. My front teeth never hit together, so they never did much work. Now that they're on the move and actually doing something, they're tender most of the time. So, I carry a fork and knife and cut everything up. No biggie.

On the third day, I noticed that my top incisors had moved a little bit and created a bit of space. Floss that was normally a fight to get in there now just glides right through. I can even see my tongue a little through the space. On the other hand, spaces that were wide open are now a fight to floss.

Then, on the fifth day, I saw that my lower incisors had uncrossed some too. I stood in the parking lot and cried for joy! It was the first time that I really believed that nice teeth might actually happen to me.

So that's the post-vacation scoop! First adjustment is on September 15. Crossing my fingers for no more emergency appointments until then.

#19 Post by **Memran** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 5:35 pm

Firstly, congratulations on getting braced and seeing movement! Its such a great feeling when you can see it working isn't it?

Although I'm no expert, I think the amount of pain you were in during your 1st emergency visit is much greater than you would have at a regular adjustment, because your teeth were still getting used to the pressure being applied to them.

Hang in there

#20 Post by **iamtheotherme** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 9:17 am

Here are some pix I took today. It's harder for me to see in the pictures the microscopic movement I've achieved, but I can definitely see it in the mirror and feel it when I floss.

I feel bad for Mr. Lateral N. Cisor from the town of Upper Right. He was purposely left off the wire (too close to Ms. K. Nine to even get a lig on) and is just kinda hanging out there. Soon, his neighbors will skooch out of the way and let him in.

Aug 19:

Aug 31:

Aug 19:

Aug 31:

Aug 19:

Aug 31:

#21 Post by **ckrobyn** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 1:36 pm

iamtheotherme wrote: It's harder for I feel bad for Mr. Lateral N. Cisor from the town of Upper Right. He was purposely left off the wire (too close to Ms. K. Nine to even get a lig on) and is just kinda hanging out there. Soon, his neighbors will skooch out of the way and let him in.

]

Ha Ha Ha!!
Thanks for the good chuckle

#22 Post by **iamtheotherme** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 6:02 pm

Meh. For the longest time, I thought that I'd be happiest when I saw movement in my two front teeth and they uncrossed. I'm changing my mind.

My upper right second premolar is in a crossbite, but just barely. It's more like an edge-to-edge bite. The teeny point on one hits exactly on the teeny point on the opposing tooth. It drives me FREAKING INSANE. It's the first point of contact in my bite and when I clench at night, those two teeth are sooo tender in the morning.

For the six months or so before I got braces, I wore an anterior bite deprogrammer to see what it would do for my clenching. It was amazing.

Of course, now I can't wear it because of the braces, so I'm back to clenching.

On my bonding appointment, I mentioned the clenching to my ortho who gave me an "orthodontic mouth guard." It's blue and flimsy and laughably huge. It's like a bite wafer crossed with a sports mouth guard for giants. I can't even close my lips around it, so wearing it at night is out of the question. What do you other clenchers do?

Edited cuz I mentioned the wrong tooth.

#23 Post by **BracedVeryLate** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 10:17 pm

hi there
i also have teeth hitting together that never did before! ouch!! it seems to last for a few weeks before the poor teeth get used to it.

i don't know anything about clenching, but you might want to do a search on it, there is so much info here!

good luck
Patricia

#24 Post by **Grutty** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 11:07 am

Hi Iam,

I came over to check out your story, we do have similar stories, and similar teeth! I also cant wait until my front teeth uncross.

I grind my teeth at night too. My dentist said that the grinding might stop once my bite improves. Did your ortho say anything about that?

Your ceramic braces look great, and I love your freckles.

#25 Post by **lueyfufu** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 1:09 pm

My ortho said that, too. My teeth only meet at two molars on the right side now, and when I'm sleeping, I think maybe I clench my teeth in an effort to get my bite back to what it was before all this orthodontic nonsense.

I think maybe our bodies naturally resist changes like this at first.

#26 Post by **iamtheotherme** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 6:25 am

Thanks for stopping by BVL, Grutty, and Luey! I think you're right about my clenching getting worse as my bite changes and that it might settle down as my occlusion settles down. It's definitely on my list of questions for my next adjustment. (I bring my questions on Tony the Tiger sticky notes, so the ortho asks what Tony has for him today. Heh.)

Yesterday, my upper right incisor and lateral incisor started getting really sore. That surprised me for two reasons. First, everything in my mouth had calmed down, so I (foolishly) thought it might be smooth sailing until my adjustment. Second, the lateral isn't even on the wire, so I dunno why he's sore. I hope it all means movement is afoot.

Finally, in the land of perpetual surprises, I discovered that I really missed flossing. I've been using the ShowerBreeze (the waterpik kind of thing that's hooked up to the shower) at my ortho's suggestion because there were so many places that I couldn't even force floss into. Last night I decided to floss as many spots as I could, and it felt really clean and like it worked my gums well. I think I'll do both the floss and the SB as often as I can, even if it's redundant.

#27 Post by **iamtheotherme** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 9:08 am

Just got back from my first adjustment. Overall, it went well, very little pain at all!

He did a bit of IPR between my lower and upper incisors. One of my lower incisors just started moving about two days ago and was the only sore tooth in my mouth - what are the odds? So, he starts the IPR drill thingy, and I could take it for about two seconds, then had to stop him. He completed the IPR after doing a couple more two-second bursts and was good about stopping and asking how I was doing. But, I think it put him and the assistant on edge because the rest of the appointment wasn't fun and jokey like usual. Dunno why, but that really has me down.

I'm also not crazy about the results of the IPR. It seems to have left a bit of a rough edge, it looks weird from the front (a very straight edge), and weird from the back (exactly like a sanding wheel was jammed between my teeth). I know many people here got it done and say it's no big deal, so I'm trying not to freak out about it. I guess he can smooth out the weird edges later.

They changed out the ligs and wire up top (dunno what size I had before, but now have a 16 wire). I heard him say white wire, but I got a steel-colored one.

I now also have a power chain and wire connecting the teeth on either side of my extraction spot. Just a lig change on the bottom arch; he said not much movement needed to be done down there this month, aside from closing the new gap from the IPR. I did go with light blue ligs on the bottom arch, tho!

Pix later, probably tomorrow unless my Monday class is canceled due to low enrollment.

One down, 11 more to go.

#28 Post by **shinyRiver** » Tue Sep 16, 2008 8:30 am

my upper left lateral incisor is sympathizing with your Mr. Lateral N. Cisor from Upper Right. in fact, my upper left is still so crooked that he doesn't even have a bracket yet!!

poor guys! they'll be up to speed with the rest of our teeth soon, I'm sure.

but for now... your teeth look like they're moving right along! thanks for keeping up with your pics! some people's smiles are just so fun to watch.

#29 Post by **iamtheotherme** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 8:23 am

I am woefully behind in my updating! I had my second adjustment on Monday. It went by almost too fast! He peeked in, bite-open-bite-open, said "This is going way better than I anticipated," and told the assistant to do the same configuration I had. So, I got new, clean ligs (I went with silver on bottom tho, love them), a wire trim on the ends, and a wee bit of tooth shaving in a few places.

During this adjustment, there was only one tooth that made me squirm a little bit when she put the lig on. For the first time, the thought crossed my mind, "holy crap, I might actually be able to complete this journey." The post-adjustment pain was minimal, not even enough to take an Advil. The Advil came later for having too much work and too much school work to catch up on this week.

My extraction space in the back is the biggest mover of the month, but I couldn't get good pics to show it. The huge bit of wire in the back that I was sure was going to pierce straight through my cheek was evidence enough for me. My cross-bite tooth (the one in front of my extraction spot) that was point-to-point with its lower counterpart is now neither point-to-point nor in cross-bite, yay. It makes sleeping a bit more comfortable.

For your viewing pleasure, pictures of the inside of my mouth! My photography is certainly no good for scientific comparison, but I think there's enough movement now to see a difference even with the angle problems. I'm happy about it, anyway!

8/19 (start date) upper:

10/13 (before adjustment) upper:

8/19 lower:

10/13 lower:

8/19 front:

10/13 front (the stuff on my lips is Sensodyne, very sticky stuff):

#30 Post by ***melissa*** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 10:41 am

Wow, amazing progress!!!!