Week 57 with the Damon Braces

Summary: Feeling elastic with rubber bands!

Today was my ortho appointment. Hurray! The good news is that now it seems like my appointments are every 7 weeks and not every 8 weeks anymore - at least for the next one, it will be in 7 weeks and so was the previous one.

A lot of things happened today.

1) New archwire - my lower teeth got new wires. My ortho said these would be my final wires for my lower teeth. I had already gotten my final wires for my upper teeth. Now both my upper and lower teeth have wires with extra antennae for rubber bands (as I discovered today)

2) Adjusted archwire - my upper teeth are still not opening up. The left side needs to wide out to be where it should be. These were also my last wires. So what did the ortho do? Did I get new wires? Nope, he took them out and with pliers he twisted the left side to be a wider arc. LOL. That was just funny.

3) New rubber bands - I got a total of 3 rubber bands. 2 of them are simmetrical - one on each side of the lower teeth. These are, as you can see in the pictures, to bring my teeth closer together. I think it is also bringing my lower teeth back a bit. These I do not have to change and will stay there until my next appointment. I can see a lot of food getting stuck in the near future. The 3rd rubber band is going from my 1st molar on the upper right to the antenna on the lower right. This band is supposed to help shift my lower teeth so that the upper and lower teeth are centered. It has another function too but I forgot :D. The annoying part is that I have to take it off to eat and brush and replace it with a new one every time. I also got a little tool to put it on.

I also felt a little embarrassed today because as the assistant took off the old archwire I could smell something coming out of my mouth probably from dirty stuff stuck inside the brackets (not my fault!).

Week 52 with the Damon Braces

Summary: 5 more weeks until my next appointment

I took these pictures last week so I am calling this entry 'Week 52.' Wow, it has almost been a year. I think tomorrow will be my 1 year anniversary with the Damon Braces.

From the pictures, I think there is a slight improvement on my upper left side. It is probably minimal, but I think the improvement is there!

Here are my pictures for week 52. This time around I went for a scary shot.

Week 51 with the Damon Braces

Summary: Feeling great and slowly seeing my teeth coming together

The next couple of days following the change of archwires were abnormal. Why? Basically I wasn't in much pain. First of all, even though my lower teeth got a new set of wires, I did not feel any pain. Does that mean my lower teeth are done moving? Are they in the position they should be? Are they too old and stiff that the wires can't move them anymore? Truth is, I don't really care as I think they are perfect the way they are now (except for a small gap that needs to be fixed with some power chain or bands).

My upper teeth experienced something different. Only my 3rd molar on my left side was painful. The remainder of my upper teeth did not feet a change! After 2 days it felt like it was back to normal. Hopefully this is a good sign!

This morning I woke up and had a funny sensation in my mouth. I felt that my bite was actually perfect but when I looked in the mirror I noticed it still needs some fixing :(.  Maybe the power of the mind will make them move faster. LOL.

That's it for now.