I’m 22 and my dentist managed to make me agree to braces two weeks ago….
I have been a good candidate for braces since I was little. The dentist I had back then tried to push me very hard to get braces and because of the bad communication we had together I never got to explain why I did not want them ( we all have heard the stories of people who could not eat for days and I saw the pain my friends had). Every time on my annual appointment she used to hand me a list of orthos I should contact and got angry if I did not do so. This dentist gave me dental fear and when I was 17 years old I stopped going completely as a result of my fear. It's exactly one year since I made my first dental visit since I was 17 years old, my savoir was a friend of dad who is a dentist. Even though my teeth looks like a mess he never mentioned anything about that. Braces was not a topic before I wanted to extract my canine. Its above two of my other teeth and very visible, looking like a fang. My big brother had his extracted by another dentist years ago was happy with his choice.
My dentist deserves a huge hug for the effort he had done to save my canine. I have refused braces out of fear and old feelings from my old dentist every time, and he has never pushed me. Every time I refused he dropped the subject, and it was only when I tried to get him to extract my canine again that braces became a topic once more. He felt it was a bit drastic to extract such an important tooth. He did impressions of my teeth just so I did not need to see the ortho myself (the ortho is working next door
lol) and had a meeting with him to see which options I had, everything for free since all I wanted was to extract it, it was he who wanted to see my options. This was in April and I still refused braces (we started all this extraction vs ortho thing in January). The idea of having braces on my teeth was too impossible. He asked me to give it some thought till my next appointment. Even though he felt it would be wrong he could extract it if this was what I truly wanted. Since April I have looked up braces on Google and cried because of the emotional feelings I get when I picture braces on my teeth. I have watched myself in the mirror and cried of what I have seen. I could cry at night because I hated my teeth, sometimes I wanted to find a hammer and smash the canine out.
I have hardly been thinking of anything else than this tooth and braces this summer, would love having straight teeth but getting braces seem too much for me to do.
I called my dentist's assistant two weeks ago to get my canine extracted. After some trubble getting my appoitemnt (computer freezing, the software not wanting to register my appointment ect) I finally got it and it felt strange… I knew that extracting this canine was not the solution, my other teeth would still be a mess, but somehow extracting sounded like my only option.
Later that day she called me back to say that the appointment I got was too short for the extraction and that my dentist would want to examine it first. My dentist had also been speaking with the ortho about this tooth and it seemed like I would have to have this extraction done by a specialist, my dentist would call.
My dentist called the next day and said that he had a meeting with two specialists, and he would not let me extract it. My teeth would start to move and I could within a year have problems with my bite. They had looked on my x-ray and the impression I did a few months ago, and thought that it would be better to extract a premolar with a very deep filling on that side and get braces. He was very good at explaining why I could not extract this tooth and why he would not do it. When he told the price he had got from the ortho I was tempted to say yes, he had managed to get me a very good price. And it would take me about 9 months to get my whole upper jaw fixed!
He was like “I can take the phone with me and make an appointment with him right now” when he heard that I was considering this but I needed some time to think.
I called him back after a few hours and told him that I would do it.
Not long after this I got a phone call from the ortho’s assistant and my appointment…!!! I was so calm when she called, I could not believe this. A few months ago I would have been a wreck! My dentist had presented this is such a good way that day, and I could hear how much work he had been putting into this that I finally understood that this was the right thing to do.
My appointment is November the 11th!!!
However, my calmness was not there to last
. Three days after agreeing to this I started to have problems with sleep and my stomach. November seems like a forever and had to call my ortho to ask if I could get an appointment sooner, I could not go on like this... When the ortho's assistant explained that it was not possible I was only one word from cancelling the who whole thing..! The fear had gotten to me and did not know what to do. Luckily some good friends managed to calm me down (among the Klobird on this forum). So this is me. Terrified of getting braces and thinking every day that I should cancel this appointment, but I don’t really have any other choice than braces. I really hope my ortho is good with dental fear or else he will get a h*** of a job lol
BUT I work in a company near senior management positions, and noone has braces, still I decided to do it now because eventually i will feel much better and more self confidence.
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