trying to grind my braces off... (day 15 already!)

i've been hearing a funky noise in my mouth when i notice i'm grinding/clenching/sliding my bite, so i was just checking my braces out in the mirror to see what's going on in there. it appears that when I grind my teeth at night (such a great habit to have btw) or do those other things, I'm hitting my very back lower right molar and the crown in front of it on part of the massive band/headgear tube/rubberband attachment/mess of metal on my upper right molar. not a huge deal but it's now left a metallic mark on my teeth on the bottom and I know it can't be good for my tooth to be repeatedly grinded against chunk of metal for 6-8 hours (ha! like I ever sleep 8 hours!) a night.

dr hobday had talked about maybe needing a bite plate of some kind at night as i have had one for the past 13 years. i haven't worn it for the last 6 months, it hasn't fit it since i got my 3 crowns. while i have been fine without it during that time (other than the monthly headaches and such), it doesn't look like i will be fine now. it looks like i'll need something to protect my teeth and braces from myself, this whole procedure is costing enough $, i don't want to wreck my teeth and cause damage! or screw up my ortho work and need to fix hardware that i've broken or need to have my braces stay in longer/push back surgery as a result of the grinding. that would not be cool.

i called the ortho office to see what they say. chick thought it was weird that it was leaving marks (go me!). she said i could come in earlier, but dr. hobday is in rogers today plus, i am at work and don't have access to a car. she seems to think that it would be ok to wait until i come in on the 7th, and i think so too i guess (i don't have any time to come in earlier!). she said we'll definitely talk about it next time with dr. hobday and will probably make a night bite guard.

ha! like i need more stuff in my mouth! plus i don't understand how that really works... how does it stay on your teeth yet let your teeth move from the braces? do you have to make a new one every week or every adjustment? is it just a sports mouthguard to keep your teeth apart and protected from each other or ??? plus, not that it's not obvious something is needed, it will be an additional charge on top of the rest of this. for some reason i think i remember a price of under $100, and i know that when you are talking $10K+ for all of this, what's another $100, especilly when it is to help the bottom line goal. it still sucks!

in the meantime, i have put some wax on that band back there. i hope it will help during the day when i unconsiously slightly grind/slide my teeth. hopefully if it bumps that i'll notice and stop doing it... i hope. at night, well, guess we'll wait to see what dr. hobday says, a blob of wax won't stop me from doing anything at night. i grind holes through plastic bite plates, wax won't stop me.

cheeps! (day 13!)

had a great weekend, ate anything and everything. arby's roast beef, check! sante fe chicken salad, check! lasagna (actually wasn't concerned about this one, but...), check! whopper junior, check! and even a 1/2 stick of gum, check! i can officially bite into things and eat salad. yea!

survived cleaning while out of town. would have been easier had ron's parents not been redoing their bathroom and i could have brushed my teeth in the bathroom instead of the laundry room, but it worked out fine anyway. (same can't be said about our car... a tree decided to fall onto it friday night... got some nice dents to fix now. http://homepage.mac.com/cori_wilbur/PhotoAlbum4.html)

of course now today come monday, my lower front brackets are annoying my mouth. made it all day, but just broke down and now i'm packing wax on my lowers. blah, whatever, i know i'll toughen up but at the same time, i tried and now i'm sick of it so i'm just going to chill with the wax for a bit. i don't wear wax to bed so i can toughen up then. :)

i have also experienced one of the things that the favorite sister kristi told me about. waking up with your braces stuck in your cheeps (she did mean cheeks). it is a very interesting feeling. :)

hello? anything moving yet? (day 10!)

is it friday already??? well, i can attest to the fact that at some point you will forget that you even have braces. i haven't quite hit it, but i don't so much 'notice' them anymore. i know they are there, and i don't forget when i eat (it's much easier but still sometimes a challenge), and i brush so much there is no way i can really 'forget'. but they are just there. not good, not bad. pretty amazing. 9 days ago i thought this was impossible. things to remember for the future.

but speaking of brushing. gah! i brush when i wake up, i brush after breakfast, i brush after lunch, i brush after dinner and i brush before bed. i also floss after dinner and waterpik after dinner and before bed, and use ACT before bed. yup, my nights are exciting. 20 minutes after dinner and 15 before bed, all on oral hygiene. whoohoo...

tooth movement wise, i haven't seen anything spectacular... my slightly crooked front tooth looks the same to me. well, then again it may look slightly less prominent than before. hmm.. my very rotated tooth in front of my 6 year old molar is not much better, but it IS sore and sensitive to pressure and i did just uncement it from my molar what, 3 days ago? :) my lower front teeth are still sensitive to pressure and i do notice some movement among them, however they are looking crooked to me (and they weren't before). the two in the middle are coming up some so you can see that i have grinded them away in the center and it makes the points on the sides much more noticeable. those four teeth are also VERY tight when i floss. which is weird because then the teeth on the sides of them are very NOT tight when i floss. i would think it would even out? i know things sometimes look worse before they look better, and that orthodontists sometimes have to move things around and this ISN'T how they will look when i'm done. just observing is all.

i'll have some work to do once braces and surgery are all over. as mentioned before from my ortho, my two center lower fronts will need to be either bonded or shaved down or something. the ones on either side will probably be ok. my upper front centers will need something as well. i've ground the outside of them off, so the inner edges are slightly longer. the two on either side, just like the bottom, are probably ok as well. guess we'll see when it's all over!

she's obsessed with flossing! (day 7)

so last night i was flossing my teeth.  (yea for flossing!)  anyway, i am able to floss between all of my teeth, other than my 6 year old molar and the tooth in front of it on the right bottom.  now these are the teeth that had the excess cement issues when they put the braces on, and looking in my mouth, they were cemented together.  no big surprise that i couldn't get the floss though.  i have been able to poke the stiffened end of the floss between and through these teeth, so i could still floss in there but haven't be able to pull up through the teeth to get the floss out, was only able to pull the floss out from underneath.  well yesterday i managed to pick the chunk of cement that i could see off, but still couldn't floss.  so i threaded through the teeth again, and slowly and carefully worked my way up.  took me forever (seriously, 5-10 minutes) but finally i was able to pull the floss up and through!  two large pieces of cement also came out (actually very small pieces in the grand scheme of things, but they were big enough!) and it looks as if they were the issue.  I can now floss between these teeth with no issues. 

i would have just left it until i went back to the ortho (june 7th, less than 3 weeks already), but the tooth in front of my 6 year old molar is rotated about 30-40 degrees towards the front of my mouth and the fact that it was cemented to the other tooth really bothered me.  this is one of my 'worst' teeth and i want to make sure it starts moving!  it does feel more sensitive today.  hopefully getting it unstuck helped out! 

other than that.  not much else.  had turkey, mashed potatoes and asparagus for lunch.  worked fine.  what a difference a week can make!  no wax, no real pain eating.  it's all good.  yea!

yum!!! (still day 6!)

i ate steak! steak!!! it was so good! so wonderful!

m&m's! (braces day 6)

breakfast of a banana and orange juice.  yippee...  i don't think i'm quite up for my usual breakfast of toasted english muffin/eggbeaters/processed cheese sandwich quite yet.  that's ok.  as much as it sucks this braces diet is starting to work.  my shorts weren't quite so tight yesterday.  i guess i can get used to that.  :)  helps curb the snacking too.  if i'm going to have to brush after a snack, i'm more apt to just skip it instead.  not a bad thing either. 
 
had a frozen meal for lunch.  turkey, stuffing and veggies.  turkey wasn't that bad to eat, managed to do it. 
 
i told ron i want steak for dinner tonight!  yum!  i wonder how i'll do with that one! 
 
i'm also very tempted to go out and get some gum.  i miss gum, and i hate that even after brushing i feel like my teeth are so scummy.  ick.  plus, on the yahoo braces board i found, they say that chewing gum helps your adjustment pain go away faster.  see!  how can it be bad if it helps you??? 
 
it is amazing though, i'm on day 6 (truly, really full day 5 since i got them on at 4:00 wednesday) and i can see how other than the cleaning and the 'banned' foods, how people can forget at some point that they have their braces on.  i'm on day 2 or 3 with no wax.  i think it was friday i only put on just a little bit.  but now i'm mostly fine.  last thursday i would have beaten someone if they had told me to just hang in there, soon i'll 'toughen up' (actually someone did tell me that i DID want to beat them, luckily you can't beat though e-mail).  anyway, i think the fact that i never slept with wax in helped alot!
 
i have never brushed my teeth this much ever before in my life.  after every meal, after ever snack. 

speaking of snacks, i had some peanut butter m&ms this afternoon! peanut m&ms are on the 'banned' list, but plain m&ms are ok. seeing as how the PB m&ms have the same taste as peanut m&ms without the crunch of the peanut, and are actually 'softer' than plain m&ms, i decided they were ok. i had about 12 of them. they were very good. :) yum.

FOOTLONGS! (braces day 5)

breakfast of a banana.  did the AIDS walk, had another banana.  (btw, not having as many issues with bananas as things actually ARE toughening up and getting used to the braces).  after the AIDS walk we headed towards somewhere to sit.  after we were sitting i saw the sign, FOOTLONGS.  YEA!  i haven't had a footlong in TOO LONG (silly 8 year vegetarian streak...).  found out that hotdogs are tougher to bite through than you think, but i pushed thorough the pain and ate it anyway.  feels like my front teeth are going to give when i bite into things, but they say the more you use them, the faster the pain will go away.   ready go! 
 
p.s.  the footlong was painful but very good!  ready for the 4th of july and the state fair now!
 
flossed again.  yea!  that glide floss is so awesome.  only took me 15 minutes this time.  still got the right side joint pain.  blah!  just a little massage to the jaw area helps out alot, then i have some pain and clicking that goes away relatively quickly. 
 
noodles and flatbread for dinner.  took me a while to eat it, but overall it was a much better experience than last time (first night in braces).  yea!!!

flossing is FUN! (day 4 with braces)

breakfast was cold cereal, steered away from the lucky charms, but did had honey nut cheerios with no problems.  yea! 
 
went to redstone to eat, had sea bass.  was very good (but LOUD and noisy and the service was less than stellar).  also had cooked veggies, bit through a cooked carrot (yea!) although also had one was just too hard.  getting there! 
 
i also flossed today!  well, mostly.  it took a good half hour.  i tried the oral b super floss first (mistake).  first, after the stiffened end that you thread though, they have this bulky extra thick floss before the normal floss.  annoying to try to get through that first before the floss, EVERY TIME.  then i shredded it until it finally broke when i was trying to go between my molars.  finally i whipped out my other alternative (btw, i don't consider real floss and a flosser to be an alternative, what a joke!), special glide floss with one end that is stiffer for threading through things.  dude, that thing kicked ass!  got through ALL of my teeth, even the ones that the oral b floss couldn't get into because it was too tight of a contact.  and no pain in the ass chunky floss part to get past.  even though it is $6 for a 30 pack we went on out to target and got me one (had samples from the ortho).  definitely worth every penny. 
 
i did give myself a callus/sore raised area on the top knuckle of my left middle finger from flossing.  apparently something i do when flossing irritates that area.  weird things you find out when you floss for 30 minutes.  i also experienced my first TMJ/jaw pain from this whole experience from having my mouth open (and trying to open wider) the whole time flossing.  my right joint was not happy at all.  but went away soon enough. 

sammich and pizza! (day three with braces)

the teeth are mostly fine.  front ones are a little sore, but nothing compared to the spacers horror.  the inside of my mouth however... seen much better days.  my braces on the bottom in front are quite annoying.  that's what hurts the most.  that and not being able to eat anything 'harder' than mac & cheese.  yesterday i had a fruity soy drink for breakfast, fruit cup for a snack, soup and mashed potatoes for lunch, and another fruit cup during the afternoon for a snack.  i was absolutely starving last night, and for REAL food!  i waxed up all good and then we had mac and cheese.  it was amazing. (p.s.  bet you didn't know this is now cori's food blog). 
 
bananas might be on the no side.  while soft and easy to eat, they have always slightly irritated my mouth, and now with my mouth already irritated, it's just not worth it.  they are so easy though and so good for you!  gah.
 
ate my first sandwich today!  (lunch)  egg salad and a piece of muenster cheese!  so i didn't bite through the sandwich that well, it was more of a tearing instead of a biting.  it's a good step!  unfortunately, the pickle slice, proved to be too difficult.  oh well. 
 
went to CPK for date night, ate bread and butter (not the crust though), hummus and warm, soft pita bread, and pizza! (with knife and fork, but still!).  it was an amazing dinner.  brushed in the bathroom, at least theirs is mostly nice.  then we went to see troy, managed to get through a movie with no popcorn.  :(
 
at least i got to play with my new toy!  i got a cordless waterpik!  it's so cool!  bulkier than i expected but totally recommended.  picked mine up at target.  manufacturer's retail price = $39.99.  mine = $24.99 plus my 10% discount.  whoohoo!  i got the suggestion off my surgery boards, they say (if allowed by your surgeon) that waterpiks help clean when you are banded shut and are dealing with your splint, however practicing before surgery is HIGHLY recommended.  i can see how it would help, this thing rocks! 

food? please? (day 2 with braces)

la la la...  so, definitely eating to live the rest of this week.  ortho chick told me to make sure i had a good meal last night as my teeth wouldn't be sore yet.  ha ha ha!  they weren't sore yet but i could barely eat with all this crap in my mouth, then when i did, my lower braces tried to scrape the inside of my mouth off, the bands on my molars have sharp things on the inside that tried (successfully, i'd like to add) to rip apart my tongue and there was food everywhere.  gah.  we had noodles, i was able to eat not even half of my food.  i did have a banana later.  then today, my teeth are not very sore at all, however these brackets are just against me.  i hate them.  they look kinda cute though.  check out the pics on my macwhore site. 

oh, i had cauliflower and cheese soup and mashed potatoes.  (funny story about the mashed potatoes...)  but i couldn't really eat the cauliflower in the soup, it was pretty hard, not soft and soupy like.
 
i also just had a banana.  bit into it.  holy crap, that hurt.  didn't notice because i haven't bit into things but my upper front teeth, VERY sore if i bite on them.  good times.  still not as bad as the spacers yet.  but i'm breaking out the wax as soon as i brush my teeth.  again.  getting tougher but not there yet. 

they are on! (day one with braces...)

soo...  getting braces sucks.  both the experience of the application of the braces, and life with the braces. 
 
go in for my appointment.  first thing ortho chick does is pull out my spacers.  and i mean pull out, like i feel like my teeth will come with them.  gah!  then when they finally snap and pull out, little bits of food that was stuck in with them comes out as well (i swear i brushed, alot!).  ick.  she makes comments about my 'tight contacts' and it gets to the point that i want to yell, 'i'm sorry!'  apparently i have tight contacts.  blah.  so she pulls out the 9 rubber ones, then moves onto the metal ones.  she tells me that the metal ones don't like to come out.  and even with all of the moving and wiggling that they did while in, she's right.  she rips one out finally.  i'm convinced my crown came with it.  gets the other two out.  i'm ready to go home.  but no, this is just the beginning of the fun stuff. 
 
next comes the fitting of the bands around my molars.  this involves trying to make a metal band go around my molar.  i have to bite down on this tool to help shove it on.  i'm not into that.  she keeps telling me 'bite harder!'  i want to tell her, 'bite me ortho chick.  and by the way, you smell!' (she was a smoker.  and not even like her breath or her clothes were stinky (although they were) but also her hands just seemed to stink.)  once we got them on, she'd pull it off and we'd start all over again because she didn't like that one.  apparently she also didn't like trying to fit the bands on my crowns, crowns are a pain.  well doesn't that suck.  once again, I'M SORRY! 

finally get the four bands on my 6 year molars, then onto the one in front of them.  i wanted to cry.  'i need 2 bands?'  'yup.'  ugh...  these had brackets on the side of them so when i wouldn't bite hard enough she'd just grab the bracket with a pliers and shimmy it up my tooth to the gum.  wow.  thought i was in pain before!  so then she leaves them in.  i get to put on sexy orange tinted mechanic glasses and ortho chick puts a lip stretcher in (she asked first if i had ever used one before.  um, no...  why would i have???  is this some weird fetish thing i don't know about?  sorry...).  dried off my teeth with air, then she painted my teeth with what i know was etchant.  (i think she explained it as, this stuff tastes bad but it helps the glue stick to your teeth.  now i know they usually work with young peeps but...  i can handle the big words...).  then she put the bonding/sealant on it.  then she called over dr. hobday and started plopping the brackets on my lower teeth.  he adjusted them into place and asked me if we had talked about my two front bottom teeth.  we hadn't, and this is a major concern of mine, so i tried to tell him no, with the lip stretcher and his hands and brackets and stuff in my mouth.  he said he could either excavate my gums and bring those two teeth up to make them look right, but then my gumline would be off, although no one would notice although i'd have to worry about cavities, or i could bond them with dr. wong and not worry about cavities (and whatever the hell 'excavating' my gums means!  sounds NOT FUN!)  so he finished and ortho chick cleaned my lower teeth with water (very bitter taste!), took out the lip stretcher, and then i got to rinse.  she announced as she took off the lip stretcher, 'here is your first feel of your new braces!'  then asked, 'what's it like?'  ok, you just stretched my lips out and then dried out my entire mouth.  i have no idea how it feels, my mouth feels parched and weird without even trying to feel the brackets... 
 
back to the chair and the process starts all over again on top.  i go to rinse the nastiness out, and back to the chair.  now the fun part.  it's time to take out the bands!  then we get to put glue in them and shove them on, again.  luckily dr. hobday does this and he's stronger so they go on better.  side note, i thought maybe the stale smoke/ick taste of ortho chick's hands might have been the gloves she was wearing, however dr. hobday's gloved hands taste like mint.  yum! 
 
anyway...  now the bands are on for good.  ortho chick proceeds to do what feels like ripping out my teeth, but turns out to be her trying to get all of the glue out of my teeth.  she finally stops, however we both know there is a big chunk still on my lower right bottom back molar.  she says that she'll ask dr. hobday to try to get it later. 
 
she then asks what color i want.  i look them over and over as she waits impatiently (hey, first time here!  it's a big deal!).  i choose raspberry.  she puts a light wire on and then bands it in.  finally i'm done.  i now get to wait for dr. hobday to check me out.  as i wait i see a hand mirror on the stand next to me.  i think it's odd that ortho chick didn't give it to me so i could check things out, so i swipe it and check things out.  the color isn't as big of a deal as i thought it would be.  which is both a good and a bad thing i guess.  less noticeable braces is never a bad thing.  done looking at my new braces (for now...) i check out the rest of the stuff on the stand. 

i see my chart wide open and start to read it. lots of stuff i recognize, not sure of some of the stuff.  the first entry is notes from a phone call from dr. wong, my dentist.  bullet points state facts about me, that i have already been referred to dr. rahimi (oral surgeon), it mentions my issue (only back molars on either side touch, open bite.)  and the last bullet point says, please take good care of patient. 
 
that is why i like dr. wong so much and why driving to maple grove to visit him doesn't seem that bad. 
 
anyway, ortho chick comes back and says, i get to drill that cement out.  WHAT?  she looks (and acts) like she has never handled a drill ever before.  actually handling the drill, she looks like she hasn't EVER handles the drill before. she gingerly drills the cemented area in my mouth and i will her to stop.  she finally says, there, got it.  i feel with my tongue.  feels the EXACTLY the same.  oh well, i'll have them fix it next time. 
 
dr. hobday comes over and checks everything out.  must look good to him as he tells me it's all good.  ortho chick comes back and goes over first time braces wearer stuff, how to brush, how to floss, goes over the contents of my goody bag, and then gives me a sheet and tells me to pick a t-shirt design.  hmm, they are all... interesting, so i pick the most desirable of the three and then i am on my way. 

i'm starving and the ortho chick told me to eat well tonight as my teeth won't hurt yet. yea!

paxil anyone?

braces freakout 2004 has offically commenced. get your tickets here!

GAH!

one hour before i leave work, less than 2 hours before my appointment... the clock is ticking. i should take some (5) preemptive advil soon...

T minus one day!

well, woke up sore again, one of my metal spacers (bottom left) shifted and i think threw things out of alignment. it was really bothering me after dinner so i was brushing and a spacer fell out! it was from the top left. gah! i put it back in with some floss... i don't know how much it's doing but it makes me feel better. braces tomorrow already! gah! it's so terrifying and exciting at the same time.

more spacers fun

so, end of the weekend now and things are *mostly* good. have been able to eat almost everything.

yesterday was ron's birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY HONEY!) and we went out for sushi (YUM!). i was a little nervous as there are times when eating sushi that your mouth is full and you need to chew for quite a while with a mouthful of yumminess. now this can be a challenge in normal situations, but now i have these fun and exciting rubberbands and metal thingies invading my mouth as well. we sat at the sushi bar and when we ordered i asked our sushi chef if he could cut my philly and winter rolls into slightly smaller slices. he was happy to oblige (and i noticed that he was a braces wearer, yea!). he was awesome in other ways as well, our food looked amazing, he took such care to make it look beautiful, i didn't want to eat it! anyone who can, go visit kevin the sushi chef at fuji-ya in minneapolis, he rocks!

anyway, the spacers. things are mostly cool. my only complaint, when i yawn my left second to last molar hurts and occasionally cracks (like when you are little and you have a loose tooth and you bend it just a little too far and it 'cracks'.) geh! that's what it feels like. very freaky. i'm a little more comfortable if it did stuff like that when i had braces on so i know my tooth won't fall out, it will be held in. but, oh well. a few miscellaneous things here and there, i can adjust my metal spacers and i usually have to pull them out of my gums after i eat, but it's not that bad.

3 more sleeps til the braces!

day 4 of spacers...

hmm.  well, things are mostly better.  sometimes i *almost* forget that they are in (well, kinda but not really).  usually until i close my mouth and the right side hits and bounces (the rubberbands are above my teethline...).  i feel like i have gum in my mouth, only i can't chew it.  it's weird eating with 'things' in your mouth, my tongue is baffled as to what is supposed to stay in there and what should not).  i have never given this much thought to chewing in my life!  i suppose this is only the beginning of that problem.  not much pain, just a little soreness.  most of the intense 'tightness' is gone, i was able to floss my teeth (unspacered teeth anyway) last night and while it was tighter than normal it wasn't as bad as it was two nights ago when i could barely get the floss in (and then when i did it hurt like i was shoving a 2x4 in there...).   

would like them out though.  they are a pain.  hard to eat with them in.  i know that braces are no picnic but these are on the chewing surface of my teeth, braces are in front of and around the teeth.  it's got to be better, right??? *knowing it's a crapshoot either way...*

at least 95% of the pain is gone. 

the fun of day 2 & 3 in spacers

day two with spacers - thoughts from the day -
things are going ok. not in pain but definitely not comfortable. these dumb spacers are more annoying than anything. annoying as in, dude, my teeth feel SO tight and uncomfortable, this blows! i do have one that is VERY SORE. it doesn't hurt anymore when i'm just sitting here working, but if i yawn or eat or try to floss in front of it, it hurts like hell! it's just uncomfortable enough that it distracts me and makes me focus on it. FUN FUN! 7 more sleeps til the real fun. i'm thinking more about colors, now i might go blue instead of the raspberry. we'll have to see.

some time later during the morning at work... la la la. i'm alternating between thinking that my spacers barely bother me, to thinking that my teeth feel so tight that they are driving me insane! i was trying to figure out if i was grinding my teeth last night (first night in spacers). i don't think i did. i think the spacers throwing a monkey wrench into my 'bite' kinda f'ed everything up. for all the pain/discomfort i'm in today, not any of it is in my jaws. it's awesome, it's so weird!

later in the day after lunch... note to self, sammiches, while yummy, = do not work with spacers. chili = 4000 times easier to eat. damn. i LOVE bacon and it was hard for me to eat it. that's SAD!

onto thursday, day 3.

i found the COOLEST ligature color picker for braces, it makes the one i found before seem totally pointless. this one looks like REAL braces. after playing on the new one i think i'm still all about the pink elastics. i don't know. i need to check out the colors when i go in next time. hello! obviously, as I'M GETTING MY BRACES NEXT TIME! i don't think my ortho has glow in the dark colors. i would be ALL about that one!

so my teeth today are kinda better. they were KILLING me last night before i went to bed. it had been hours since i had taken any advil and i could totally tell. my teeth were aching so bad! some advil and a 1/2 hour later, much better. i had taken some yesterday morning and afternoon, but thought i'd try without it last night. guess not!

today they are not as painful, but do have more overall soreness. yesterday i couldn't chew on my left side at all without wanting to die (which was odd as usually my left side is my 'dominant' chewing side), while my right side was uncomfortable with the spacers and all, but perfectly cool with chewing. today both sides are fine to chew (yea!) but they are BOTH very sore. my tongue on the other hand, is PISSED! i can't stop touching/playing/fixing/cleaning the spacers with my tongue and it is totally raw. i'm sure it will be worse when i first get braces, which is something fun to look forward to. 6 more sleeps til braces!!!

i was able to manage turkey & mashed potatoes and gravy for lunch (and pudding and a fruit cup, didn't have as much food in that frozen meal as i thought). did ok with all that. dinner was frozen pizza and winter squash. the pizza had it's hard points but just took me a little longer than normal. i'm over the pain, i am hearing about how if you 'chew through the pain' it goes away faster. i'm all about that and chewing things does make it feel better in a way. what is stopping me is the fact that i don't want to lose/damage any of my spacers. my 3 metal ones are not so stable, i can move them with my fingernail and i usually have to adjust them back into place after eating. otherwise i'd be eating everything with no restrictions. onto day 4!

first ligature color picker - http://www.pbhs.com/ortho/braces/braces.html
second (and awesome!) ligature color picker - http://www.bracesonline.com/elastics.html

and so it starts!

fun fun fun, my new blog of my oral adventure!

long story short (i'll put up a link to my story sometime...), i need orthodontic and surgical correction of my open bite, crossbite and slight overbite. in other words, only my back molars on both sides of my mouth touch, my teeth in front don't come together all the way and to top it off, i have a slight overbite. FUN! but really, i don't look like a freak! just kidding, everyone of course, tells me, 'why do you need braces, your teeth are straight/look nice!' yup, they are and they mostly do, but they are not really functional and i have TMJ and headache issues already. i've done ALOT of thinking about all of this, and it freaks me out but it seems better than the alternatives of even more headaches, more TMJ issues, cracked and worn down molars, and other fun stuff. plus i want to be able to bite through a sandwich damnit! :)

so then, to the bitching. got my spacers today. 9 small rubberband spacers and 3 small metal spring spacers are now happily wedged in between my back molars. i don't know what was more painfun, the process of getting the spacers in (not that painful really) or paying my braces downpayment of $1700 (MUCH more painful!). during the treatment and right after i was thinking, dude, my nose feels weird. an hour later i was thinking the same thing, kinda tingly and just odd feeling, my sinus area near my nose felt odd as well. i'm weird i think. as some of the rubberband spacers sit more on top of my molars, it is screwing up my pseudo-bite (i have no bite, i have what is my version of a bite, but it is quite pathetic as you would see if you check out my soon to come pics). also, the very nice ortho lady gave me some wax as one of the metal spring spacers is more towards the front of my mouth and immediately started poking the inside of my mouth as soon as it was in. as soon as i threw a bit of wax on it, it was cool. no need to see the movie star (i swear he looks like a 'traditional' movie star, strong jaw, dark eyes look, tell me the mom's of all those young kids in the office don't like that!) orthodontist dr. hobday (who i really like and trust) today.

went right to dr. wong (my dentist) to get his seal of approval on the state of my teeth so i could get the last green light needed before the braces go on for good. luckily dr. wong was happy to oblige and we even chatted a bit after the exam about the fun process i get to go though for the next 15-24 months. it was nice that he took the time to chat with me for 5 minutes. that's why i like him.

first thing i did when i got home was show ron of course (the loving and supportive hubby) and then we went off to noodles to eat because i was STARVING and i wanted to eat before things started feeling not so happy. got one of my favorites, wisconsin mac & cheese, and proceeded to eat carefully. i have to admit i wasn't chewing as much as i probably should have been, but it went ok. had some noodles that got stuck but managed to get it all down as well as 1/2 a warm flat bread. yum.

we then went to target to wander (as we hadn't been to target yet today and we needed our daily dose) wandered around and ended up in the toothpaste/dental area. found me some NON-whitening toothpaste as it not a good idea to use whitening toothpast when you have braces on, you may end up with spots of whiter teeth where there was not braces. amazingly we found some non-whitening toothpaste (which was hard as 99% of the market right now is for whitening toothpaste), got my tom's of maine spearmint anticavity floride toothpaste and i have a week to get used to it before the braces (8 more sleeps! today is tuesday, braces on next wednesday)

of course, now it's later in the night and my teeth (mostly the front ones) are getting, not sore but annoyed. i know that when i wake up in the morning i'm going to be hurting, i can't wait. (*sarcasm warning*). next update soon to come!