Week 23 - before and after pictures

Week 23 with the elastic bands

I didn't mean to leave it nearly two weeks before doing an update, but lately I've had a lot of stuff on my plate, sorry about that.
So I was expecting a lot more pain with this square wire, but actually, it really only hurts the first few days - exactly like the other wire changes really.
The teeth are moving very, very slowly at this point. I'm still wearing the elastics - although this week I have not been very disciplined about wearing them all the time, but I do wear them every night.

Apologies for the, again, rubbish photo quality. The past few weeks, I had access to a proper camera, and now I am back to taking pictures with my smartphone again, and the image quality of the pictures has really declined over the past 5 months.

So my top row of teeth are near perfect. Only one thing, the tooth to the right of my front teeth (in the photo) just needs to move a few more millimetres. But it is moving. I can now floss and see a bit of space, so it really just needs to edge in a little more to be perfectly in line with the others.

Damon Braces Before & After: Start of treatment to almost 6 months later.

On the bottom row of teeth, you might be able to make out in the picture there is a small gap just to the left of the centre teeth. It's not really too big of a gap, and from reading other Blogs this is quite normal. I expect next time I'm at the orthodontist they'll do something to close this.

To the right is a before and after picture from the first week to this week, so almost 6 months treatment time. Looking back at the time before I had braces, my teeth really were quite jumbled. They're looking so lovely now, I'm glad I had them done!

Week 19

Week 19 - no significant improvements

Thinking about it, I've noticed since my last check up that my teeth have not actually moved so much. The bottom teeth are looking good, but the top teeth don't appear to have moved at all. Considering I'm supposedly going to be totally finished in 4 months, it's pretty worrying.

Chewing food on both sides of my mouth is a little bit problematic at the moment. I can't eat sugary things on the right side of my mouth, because every time something sugary gets near to the tooth with the receding gum and the exposed root, it hurts like hell. And on the other side it just hurts to chew hard, crunchy things.

Also worrying me is that I've still not been able to find an orthodontist to see me sooner than 3rd October and I'm trying to decide whether I should go back to Hamburg to have my next appointment, or just tell them I've found a new orthodontist that will treat me.

Week 17 (Progress picture)

Progress Picture from Week 17

Progress photo, taken 21st August 2013 (just over four months since I've had my braces put on - time flies so fast!). In this picture you can clearly see the other wires that I have top and bottom that thread around the brackets. You may also just be able to make out the small elastic power chains I have between my top two front teeth.

Week 13

Week 13

From today, I’ve started to really wear the elastics as much as I can manage. I really want to make sure the braces are working as quickly as they possibly can do and don’t want my orthodontist to be disappointed in a week and a half when I have my next appointment.

Other than that no real change. Same old, same old.

Week 6

I've decided to change the titles to weeks now, as they are easier to keep track of than days. So I am now 6 weeks, almost 7 weeks through wearing the braces. Last time I wrote, I'd been having real aches in my top front teeth and the crooked tooth next to it, but when I look at it, it's amazing how much it's moved in the whole time I've been wearing the braces.
The bottom front four teeth have slowed down in movement quite a lot. From what I can see, a bit more space needs to be created, and then they need to be turned to created a nice 'U' shape.
My bite feels fine, and looks as though it's still ok, not moving wildly out of control. But now when I bite down, the crooked tooth on the right side comes into contact with the bottom teeth, so I think it really needs to come over the bottom teeth.
My next ortho appointment is in two days, not sure if they're going to make more changes, but let's see!

Day 25

Day 25

Over the past few days, it's been looking like one of my front teeth is starting very slightly to overlap the other front tooth. Although I've read from other blogs that this also happened to them, I'm not sure if this is part of the normal movement. I suppose if it starts to get really bad then I should contact my ortho, just in case.

Other than that no other news to report. Nothing hurts, eating, flossing and brushing has been easy. Only the front four bottom teeth feel a little loose at times.

Day 16 - Progress Picture

Day 16 with Damon Clear Braces

Day 13 - Progress Picture

Day 13 with Damon Braces

Day 3

Day 3 with Damon Braces. A better picture this time, but not a huge difference from yesterday.