I am so sore!

After one of the bracket got loose, I called the doctor's office next morning, got an appointment and had the bracket fixed. Turned out the person who mounted my braces didn't use a special glue for crowns and that's why the bracket came off. Now everything remains in place. If the bracket comes off again, it will have to be replaced with a band around the tooth. Hopefully that won't happen, this band is pretty wide, covers most of the tooth and is pretty visible.

On the same note, if you ever need to go to the orthodontist shortly after you got your braces, pop some Ibuprofen before the visit. The teeth are so sensitive that even touching them is painful, not to mention pulling, poking and readjusting the wires. The teeth hurt enough that I cannot put any pressure on them. Chewing is not even an option. Luckily I have the partial braces, so I can use the front teeth to nibble on food. But the molars are so sensitive that even chewing on a soft bread is painful. Soups, yogurts and puddings are the main ingredients of my diet now.

But back to the main topic of the post: the sores. The inside of my cheeks and lips is sore, red, swollen and irritated. Can't eat or drink anything warm or very cold. Rinsing with camomile tea helps a bit, though. Hopefully the tissue will scar soon and my mouth gets used to the braces.

Game on!

I got my partial closing wire braces today. It's a spring-like wire around the extraction site that will exert constant force on the canines for the next eight weeks pulling them to the back.

The pictures below show the structure of the wire:

 It is barely visible from the front (I have to pull the lips up quite a bit for the braces to show), but they stick out to the front a bit bothering the inside of my lips, not so much the cheeks in the back, though.

At the beginning it was a bit painful, now after several hours the canines are a bit sensitive, but it is bearable.

UPDATE: About 5 hours after the braces were placed, a bracket on the left second bicuspid came loose... Luckily it is the middle one, so it is not bothering me, but I can feel the tension on that side is reduced. This happened 30 minutes after the doctor office closed... Will call them first thing in the morning to set up an appointment and fix it.

The preparations

After many years of debating what type of braces would be an option for me I finally found the answer. Invisalign. It was the only option due to my job (I am an assistant professor). Teaching undergraduates and giving talks at meetings and conferences basically excluded any visible type of braces for me.

After doing some research, I found an orthodontist that specializes in Invisalign treatment and decided to give it a go.

First visit was a consultation, a lot of measurements of my teeth taken, their condition assessed and a verdict: I am a good candidate for Invisalign... after removing couple teeth and an initial treatment with partial wire braces on the top jaw. In my situation there is simply not enough space for all the teeth and I have to get rid of the top bicuspids to make space for the rest.

Two weeks later I am without teeth #5 and #12, but with a lisp that I didn't expect to be that bad. Hopefully I will get used to extra spaces in my mouth and get over the lisp soon.

Now I need to wait till next week, to let the gums heal a bit and I will get my partial wire braces. Just mounted on the canines, the second bicuspids and first molar. Should be almost invisible. Let's see how it turns out.

The bottom jaw will go directly into Invisalign at the same time the top does.

Here is a picture of the current status of my teeth:

 

This is after the extraction of the bicuspids, it's barely noticeable that they are missing. If it wasn't for the lisp.