Here's the story. I was posting on a board that was, essentially, suspended a few days ago. I no longer have access to my profile, any posts I've made, or the story I was hoping to keep in one place. As a result, here is a straight up cut n' paste from the other site. Some sort of attempt to preserve what I had already posted...
The paste:
Pasted and condensed from my quickly-dying blog [ed: haha! The irony]:
Dental history: As a kid, I never saw a dentist. Correction. I saw an oral surgeon twice when I bent my two upper front inciscors about 90 degrees from where they're supposed to be. Ice skating, teeth meet ice, kid pulls mom on to head, probablyl making things worse. You know how it goes. Anyway, those were pulled back in to place, I didn't have much aftercare, and it probably made my overbite and flaring worse.
Anyway, my dad had his entire top row of teeth removed as a teen (abscessed) and my mom's teeth appeared to be relatively healthy, so neither of them placed a whole lot of value in dentistry. We didn't have the spare change or dental coverage until I was 15, which is when I finally had my first visit with the dentist. Shortly thereafter, I had four impacted wisdom teeth removed and about 12 to 16 fillings, located in all of my molars, one incisor, and one bi-cuspid.
Fast forward ten years, with many cleanings and diligent brushing passing by. Starting in August of 2007, I had a root canal, crown lengthening, and crown put on my lower right molar (#31, maybe?) after fracturing the tooth on an M&M. During that ordeal, my other lower molar on the opposite side started hurting as the substantial filling started giving way, probably because I was only chewing with that side of my mouth during the six months the other side was out of order. Cue a second root canal and crown.
The teeth.
Not so bad, eh? Oh wait. How about some open-mouth action.
RAWR!!! Just kidding. But they're not that fantastic. I was kind of terrified that the lower front tooth that has been entirely kicked out of its spot by another tooth was just going to jump ship one day. That clusterbomb in the front kept me from eating most "banned" braces food and was screwing up my top teeth as well.
Once I finished my undergraduate degree, which I had to pay for on my own, I was finally in a happy place financially. Unfortunately, I don't have any "candid" pre-anything pictures (you know, those candid pictures where you can only see teeth ...). You will probably note the extraction spaces where some teeth used to be in the picture above. You can guess what course of treatment I went with. I won't go in to great detail about how I selected my orthodontist, but if anybody has any questions, feel free to ask.
So. Extractions on September 12th. Dry socket in TWO of the extraction sites. On the positive side, my teeth have never hurt as much as those dry sockets did. Since I got through dry sockets, I figure I can beat just about anything braces wants to hand me.
Braces Setember 26th, 2008. I think. Molar build ups. Arch wire trimmed and the build up on the left was rebuilt due to wear (it has been replaced two additional times, but only on one side). First adjustment was... November 11th, and these pictures were taken the night before:
WHOA. I know. I still get excited by that picture, even though it's a month old. During the first adjustment, they put a little wire lasso around the un-bracketed tooth. One of my brackets fell off one of my crowns last week, so when I went in today to have that fix0red, I was unexpectedly told it was time for a bracket on the front tooth. Alas, this means no pics since the adjustment, so I shall have no memory of the lasso, aside from the way it felt rubbing against my tongue during our brief time together.
Three hours later, both the brackets that were put on have slipped off. I made this face:
:(braces)
This is because I've been chewing on bracket all evening. The one in the front spins around my arch wire independent of what my mouth is doing. I've wedged some wax behind it to keep in in place until tomorrow morning.
So, if you've made it this far, congrats. I'm sure I'll be posting often, probably with pictures. This is because I'm almost as obsessed about my teeth as I am my pets.
No comments:
Post a Comment