Week 18

Week 18 of braces

I haven't had too much to report the last few weeks. There haven't been too many aches or pains. My bottom teeth are now looking very straight (from the front anyway, from the picture below, you can still see there's a bit more work to be done). I'm really pleased with them all the same.
I've moved from Germany back to the UK, so now I'm in a dilemma about switching orthodontists in the middle of my treatment. I have an appointment for the 3rd October - about a month later than I should have had it back in Germany. My last appointment, I was told I should come in every month, but Damon Braces-trained orthodontists are apparently hard to come by in the north-west of England. I was told that the maximum you should have between appointments is 10 weeks. 8 weeks is cutting it a little fine to be honest. I think I should probably look for another who can see me a little sooner.

Bottom row of teeth, much straighter, but still with a few kinks

The other problem with this is the money issue. The appointment I have lined up is a free consultation, which is pretty good. Another place said they would charge me a fee of £150, that would only be re-funded if I signed up as a patient with them. This wouldn't be a problem, if I had even a hint of how much it would cost to continue treatment with them. But without that, I chose to look for somewhere else.

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 15 - Third wire change and power chains!

Week 15 picture

I had my third check up appointment on Monday and they did quite a lot. The wires now run through all of the brackets. Previously it didn't reach the lower bottom teeth, but now those brackets are being used. One bracket on a top molar was re-aligned to a slightly different position. This is the tooth where there is not so much gum and they were blasting it with cold air. It was pretty painful but didn't last long.

I now have a white metal band threaded not only around the top six front brackets, but also the bottom six front brackets as well. Again, I was told these are to make sure that the teeth do not move so far apart from each other that they create gaps. I thought these were called power chains, but I guess I was wrong because this time, I actually did get power chains (like thin elastic bands) on my braces.

Misaligned tooth, top left; now with wire and power chain

In this second picture to the left, you can (just about) see that the back tooth is quite misaligned in comparison to the other teeth. The power chain stretches down from this bracket, down to one of the front bottom teeth. On the other side, the power chain doesn't stretch right to the back tooth, but the second to last. They ache quite a bit at first, but it's not so bad two days later.

I'm guessing this power chain will pull that crooked tooth into position as well.



My orthodontist also told me that this new wire would be my last 'round' wire, and the next wire I would get would be a 'square' wire. She also told me that I'd see a lot more change in the next few weeks and they'd start to look pretty much like they will once they take them off. From what I've heard, the square wire is used more to move the roots of the teeth - I found the info here, scroll down to 'Wires'.

I'm still wearing the elastics, although now with all the extra stuff on my teeth, I can't get the elastic to stay in place on my incisor/canine teeth. I've noticed my bite also feels odd and it looks as though there are many gaps. So I will go back soon and ask them what I should do about the elastics.

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 12 - Wearing elastic/rubber bands

I switched to wearing the elastic bands again in the daytime. It was taking longer than usual to get to sleep with the bands in. To be honest, I've only been wearing them for 6 hours, instead of the average sleep time of 7-9 hours. But it's difficult to not snack as much as I'm used to and having to keep taking the bands out every time I want to eat.
My bite feels fine though, and the canine teeth look as though they fit perfectly with the bottom teeth.
Frustratingly, the teeth don't look as though they've moved a lot in the past few weeks, but looking at past weeks photos, the wire does look a tiny bit straighter than before.

Week 10

Technically, it's week 11 as I write this but end of week 10 so the title is not so far from the truth. No real change has been going on, the elastic bands have been getting much easier to wear, I can even wear them at night while I sleep now. It makes my day a little bit easier as I don't have to try and talk wearing them (s and th sounds were difficult to pronounce when I couldn't properly open my jaws) and I also don't have to plan my mealtimes around wearing them. There's not been much movement in the teeth, although I do feel the top ones are a little loose.

Week 9

Week 9 with Damon Braces

I've been so busy the past week, I haven't had much time to write. In any case, there has not been so much to report over the last week. I began to get an ulcer the first few days of wearing elastics and as it got so much worse and more painful with the elastic bands rubbing against it all the time, I decided to stop wearing them altogether until the ulcer healed, so today has been the first time I've had them on in about a week, I think. It doesn't seem like my teeth have made major movements, so I can only hope that the bands will still be able to make the changes that my orthodontist is hoping to see by the next appointment. Speaking more about elastics, I've discovered this channel Ortho2 Systems on Youtube that has video demonstrations of how elastics move your teeth, how you should brush your braces, as well as a bunch of 3D videos, it's really cool!