Week 17

Went to see my orthodontist this week. 

OH, and exciting news. Not exactly, but now I've caught up with myself, so this blog post is in real time. Ha. So I did actually go for an adjustment the other day.

This is the longest period of time I have gone without seeing my orthodontist. A whole 7 weeks! Before, I saw him what felt like every few weeks for brackets that had fallen off. Anyway, for some reason when I was waiting to go in for my appointment I felt just a bit nervous. Perhaps it's because I wondered what he would say about my progress and what he would do this time, if anything. Maybe he would just say it was too early to change my wires... and that would be a let down. 

But he didn't. Thankfully. He did loads!

He took off my top wire, took off my chains (I had actually gotten quite fond of those little guys) and put in a new Teflon coated white wire. All quite straight forward.

Then, the bottom. These teeth in my mind are a lot further behind the upper ones with regard to my orthodontic treatment. They are still quite crowded, wonky and I still have HUGE gaps where I had my teeth taken out. He attached new (hardcore looking) metal brackets onto my first lower molars. These have little hooks on. He then put on a metal coloured (METAL COLOURED!) wire, and then did this really odd thing. Okay, you will only completely understand this feeling if you are currently having or have been through orthodontic treatment. When someone is in your mouth, messing around as such, everything they do feels BIG and scary. I just lie there (with my eyes closed), and hope that he doesn't pull/knock any of my teeth out. But today it felt like he twisted the bottom wire!! Just the ends and then popped it into the new end brackets. All very odd. But I put my faith in him. He said that he is please about how things are progressing and that everything is moving as he expected. 

There is one thing I have noticed in the past 7 weeks. My upper first molars that have been pulled forward into the gaps where my extracted teeth used to be, have definitely moved. Like A LOT. I only have really small gaps now, but the teeth have moved at an angle. So the biting surface is no longer flat. You might be able to see what on earth I'm rambling about in the photos below. Anyway, I thought this was odd so mentioned it to my orthodontist. He described my whole treatment as a building. That at the moment he is doing some demolition so that he can then re-build my smile. So simply, he needs to get the teeth roughly in the right positions then he will make them look nice and straight! So its all normal and will get sorted out later on.

Here are some photos of my teeth now:

The bottom teeth are still kinda crazy

Please excuse my lump of wax

Can you see my patch? It's moved again!

So I'm seeing him again in 5 weeks time. I wonder if things will change that quickly?!  

Oh and my face is currently rather sore, especially my bottom back teeth. It's probably all that twisting he did!! Going to go take some pain relief and get an early night. Besides, it is going to take me forever to clean my teeth with all these new bits and bobs!     

I have a feeling I may be needing my trusty brace wax again this week...