Week 78 Brace Debonding Appointment

Soooooooooooo. 

Guess what...

IT'S OFF!

Yaaaaaaaaaaaay. 

It's almost 18 months to the day since I had my initial fixed ceramic brace put on. Boy, how quickly that time has flown by. 

I went to this particular orthodontic appointment trying not to get my hopes up. The previous two appointments have ended up with me being a little disappointed as the top brace didn't come off. 

Well two months since getting my lower fixed brace removed, back in June 2014, the upper brace is now off too!

Cannot actually believe it. 

You know I was having some worries from my previous appointment and post here, about the position of the 4th upper two teeth being a bit low. Well during the past four weeks they both moved up a milemetre or so. Only a tiny bit, but my orthodontist was concerned that if we continued to mess about and try and shift things about, that it may affect the positions of the other, already straight/in good position, teeth. Hence why he needed to shackle the rest of my teeth into place with lots of wires while he moved upper number 4's. 

Anyway. 

This appointment was all pretty straightforward. He took a look at my upper teeth and said "yep that's ready to come off". 

#happy face from me!

First of all, like before when my bottom brace came off, he cleaned the back of my top teeth ready for the fixed retainer. Something that is the norm with all private ortho patients these days. To ensure there is a little insurance to try to keep them in place. This was all very easy. He then applied the horrible tasting glue and popped on the wire to hold my teeth in place and used the light thingy to set the glue.
 

I think this may have been two seperate wires but haven't checked yet and is tricky without a mirror*. After this I had a little rinse out of my mouth with water and he moved on to removing my ceramic brackets. 

This job is fine if they come off easily. The orthodontist literally clips them off. Not a nice sound as he drops them into the metal dish as it sounds like he's pulled your tooth out. Ha. But the tough ones where they just don't want to come away fell like he is squeezing your teeth. There is just a horrid pressure that you want to stop. I had two like that this time. Oh well. He just used the electric file things and loosened the glue a little. 

Then he polished the rest of the glue off and cleaned my teeth.  

Then it was time for moulds. Not only to make my upper retainer, but also to make a solid mould of my teeth. They showed me today the one from before my treatment. Hardly recognise it! Oh and I had to bite down on a bit of wax too. I guess to see what my bite is like now. 

I'd love to know what they do with all those bits. I was told they go off to "the lab". Where and what this is, I do not know. Maybe they look at how each treatment has gone and the final product. 

Anyway. Here are my teeth now! Brace all off.

Overall, I am really pleased with the results. It doesn't feel as weird as I was told by friends who have had braces on and off. 

They said I would keep running my tongue over the surface of my teeth. To be perfectly honest it just feels great to have the brace out. Especiialy the last few weeks with it in I was having a bit of trouble with it catching on my cheeks. 

I love having the brace off. The worst thing was getting used to how the fixed retainer feels behind my teeth. My orthodontist said that my tongue would play with it for a few days and graducally it doesn't feel quite as big.

***

Popped back to orthodontist today (a few days after my final debonding appointment to collect my upper retainer). I had a nice surprise. The lab had made me another bottom retainer. Woop. So now I have a spare one. Handy actually as I have kind of been chewing mine in my sleep. In sure there are chew marks in it and I used to grind my teeth in my sleep for a period of time... Oopsy. 

So I have a beautiful neon pink case. Yay. I like this one even more than the orange one. 

The lady I saw today put in both new retainers and asked of they felt rough or uncomfortable at all. I said they were a little sharp on the top so she filed a bit off. 

Oh this was funny. I couldn't get the top retainer out for ages!!!! Very embarrassing. The bottom one I've had two months to practise with, but it took me like 5 attempts to get it out.  When I finally did, it was covered in saliva (nice) and I had to hand it back to the nurse to put in its case. Ha.

Here are a few more pictures. A final comparison to show just how far I have come in my 18 month orthodontic journey:

 

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You can see just how overcrowded my teeth were here!

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Before orthodontic treatment

After 1 month of treatment with fixed braces

After 18 months of treatment with fixed braces

These photos are incredible and still amaze me. You can see where I had the tooth extraction of my upper 5 tooth, and how the gap has closed up. Amazing.

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Anyway this journey has not quite ended yet...

I have a follow up appointment!

In 4 months time, to see how things are. 

Cracking! That's when I can ask about teeth whitening possibly... Exciting stuff! My orthodontist was right, now that all the dirty stained brackets and glue are off my teeth don't look quite as gross. But I am still interested in the idea of them being whiter. You can see in my photos that my eye teeth especially are darker than the rest. I think this has always been the case but I'd love whiter teeth on the whole!

* The upper teeth do have two wires behind them, but they overlap behind the middle upper teeth. You can kinda see here.