Week 39

I didn't get the most reassuring news during my last visit: I still don't exactly know when the braces are going to come off. On the one hand I'm not too surprised; on the other, it's not so convenient for me to fly back to Germany every month and my orthodontist realises this. They tightened the wire and then said to me that next time they would have to reposition two brackets on my front lower teeth. After I enquired when exactly I'd be finished, she then remembered that I have to fly from England for each appointment and said she'd reposition the brackets there and then.
The lower teeth are still not without gaps. There's a little one that can be seen in the picture. I hope this will close on it's own.
I have have to wear the elastic/rubber bands on my back teeth again. Apparently my bite doesn't quite line up. I couldn't actually really notice it, because one of my front teeth was hitting a bracket below when I tried to close my mouth fully, so it was hard to see. So she also smoothed down the front two teeth slightly and now I can bring both sets of teeth together.

Week 37

All is going well, but still very small, very slow changes. I'm getting a bit worried that the braces were really going to take longer than the end of February (as the orthodontist had suggested in October/November), but looking at the pictures, they look better than I thought. I'm really happy with them, but looking forward to getting them off more and more!

There is a slight gap between two teeth on the lower jaw, so I'm expecting that next time the power chain will be moved to close this. Unfortunately, as the orthodontist remarked, one of the central teeth on the bottom row is slightly smaller than the others in the row, and it seems it may not always look so 'perfect'. I've heard they can file the teeth down to make them all even, but I'm not sure I want that done. So long as they're all straight, that's fine by me. I don't really want big, white Hollywood teeth!

From the front, the upper teeth look pretty much finished, but when you see the picture showing them from below, it still needs to move just a few more millimetres. If you look closely, you can see the kinks in the wire are still not straightened out - which I'm a bit surprised about, I thought maybe they would move a little by now. Next appointment - 29th January, I'm looking forward to seeing what they will do.

Week 36 - Progress Picture

Week 36