Metal Mouth

It's been two weeks since I last saw Dr. Stewart, and today -- 36 weeks after my treatment started -- I got the bottom braces.

Somewhere between the lip spreaders, drooling on my chin and the cold puffs of air on my sensitive teeth up top, I wondered why the hell I ever thought getting braces was a good idea. But then I had to stop and remind myself how great the top teeth look already and how it'll totally be worth it.

The brackets are on every tooth again, except for the very back one on each side. Again, it's just the teeny, tiny baby wire to start out. Dr. Stewart wants to see me back again in 4 weeks. He said he can probably move to the next wire then (as opposed to after 6 weeks with the top teeth). He said he doesn't want to delay anything longer than is necessary. Said he wants to move things along as fast as possible -- which sounds great to me.

Dr. Stewart did not use the Ormco bite turbos. He added a build-up of composite on one tooth on each side so I cannot close my mouth all the way. As long as I stick my top jaw out a bit, I can bite down and not bash the top teeth on the bottom ones. This doesn't give me much of a biting surface because none of the other molars touch. I guess I'll be limited to very soft foods or things that I can squash against the roof of my mouth using my tongue. I won't really be able to chew anything major.

It feels weird to have brackets on the bottom, but I imagine I'll get used to them, just like I did the top ones. It's just different now that I have them on all my teeth (save two). I guess I'm officially a full "metal mouth"

Pictures to follow:






The image above clearly shows the "bite turbos on the back molars


SMILE!!