Day 140 --- My braces are off!

Unexpectedly, last Tuesday, I got my braces off! Wow! I can't believe it.

How this happened:
I had an appointment with orthodontic dentist as usual. I thought he's going to tweak some more, because he mentioned that he's going to change my wire to thinner one.

Then as he checked me, he said, "they look perfect! Let's take off braces!"
"Really?" I said.
"Yes. Finally I'm happy with how they look." He said.
"Okay..." I was a little thoughtful if that's a good idea or not.
"Well, think about it for couple of minutes." and he check other patients.

I went over to look at mirror and checked myself. I guess I like the look.
My teeth look more or less straight. What else can he do?

So I said yes to it, and now I'm braces free! Yay!

Of course, that took a good 45 minutes to take off braces, cleaning it, making
impressions for retainer and so on.

Plus, since my jaw was still a little tilted, (he fixed by moving teeth), some of my teeth on
one side are too long. So I asked him to trim them to look even with the other side.
And he did a great job for that.

I had another appointment after, so I went back to pick up my retainer next day.

My teeth feel good.
Now I can brush better, and things won't stuck between my braces.
I can bite better, although first couple of days, my teeth were very sensitive from
taking out all those rings and stuff.

How do I look?
Well, I will share the picture sometime soon.

I'm still getting used to not having braces and new shapes of my face.
My smile is okay. I'm getting there. My husband commented that "you are back!"
as if I was gone somewhere. I guess I didn't look the way I was supposed to.
Some people didn't change much of the look while they are wearing braces, but
not me.

I'm pretty happy about the result, and I'm happy my orthodontic dentist worked hard to make it right.

Day 132 --- Orthodontic Trick is Great!

Only three days since I went to orthodontic dentist for final adjustment. And it's looking great.
My teeth now look straight! Thanks to bending wire trick. No wonder he said "that's not my concern."
He knew that he could fix it easily. I was so worried!!!

What's happening now is to close open bite, moving lower jaw forward, upper teeth to tilt forward, and move slightly to the side and front. (are you following?)

Anyway, since my jaw is a little angled, even though teeth lined up, some parts are longer. I don't know how to explain. What needs to be done is to sand out some tips of my teeth, then they will look perfectly straight and line up. I think the dentist is planning on it. I mentioned that I don't mind that my teeth to be sand out a little to match other side. He said my front two teeth are in different shape and size. So that will be fixed at the end.

I'm getting excited. My bites seem to be working. So, I guess he's right, I'm close to be done.

Before I feel good about this, I read some blog posts. Some people were considering to have the second surgery to be perfect. The responses from people said "you might be obsessed that only you see imperfection." I thought about it. That's probably true. Everyone has something not quite right, right? Only because I did surgery to fix it, I expected to be perfect.

I'm glad that orthodontic dentist could fix the rest of problems. I know that's not perfect, but I can be happy with.

Day 129 --- Almost there!

I had another dentist appointment today. We've been checking if my jaw was still moving, and it looked like it is settled. So today, he did some fine tune to my teeth.

I asked, "can you sand my tooth here to move the front teeth, so they look straight?"
I didn't mind at this point that my jaw is slightly tilted. What I care is how they look.
He said, "I can bend the wire."

How?

Well, he did this way, that way, and all.
He said he's trying to move bottom set of teeth to move forward, upper teeth to be out and in, to close the open bite. Then after that, he'll do fine tune for slight tilt part of front teeth.

Now I have rubber bands everywhere. There are two to hold front to back.
Then they added hooks. He put double rubber bands to make a square to fit front upper teeth and lower teeth. I cannot open my mouth. He gave me a lot of extra rubber bands, so I guess I could take them off to eat. But at the same time, I'm thinking that this might be a good chance to go back to liquid diet for a week, and lose some weight.

Anyway,
He said, "you are very close to be done."

Really?
I'm glad. I was really worried when I saw the tilted jaw.
But he worked the magic to fix in the way that I'm happy about.
They actually look good already. So I hope this works out, and everything will be good at the end!

Day 122 --- down time and up time

When I'm on the good mood, teeth look good and strait. But when I'm feeling low and in the bad mood, they look more tilted. Is it just physiological thing? If they are straight, though, no matter how I feel they should look straight. So I'm just trying to be okay with tilted set of teeth most of times. But today, I'm more tired and not feeling so good. So my teeth especially bother me.

Now I'm thinking, it wasn't because I ate French fries, but probably because I brushed my teeth too soon. I started Day 17. That's just past two weeks. The doctor didn't stop me, though. I just should had waited. I remember now that it was painful to open my mouth. Then I had to move brush between small space between my upper jaw and lower jaw. I think that did it. Somehow some point I must have pushed too much. Then that caused this shift. Yes. Call me stupid. That's how I feel. Why why why I didnt wait? First of all, I never imagine that the jaw would move like that. They are. bolted together. But then, like my orthodontic dentist explained, upper jaw is like Plastic Easter egg. Only if I knew.

Too late.

I just have to live with my own mistake and every time I look at my tilted teeth, I just know how stupid I am. Right? Great!

Sorry, I'm really downer today. I'd better stop writing.