A few updates

Hi! Sorry I've been M.i.A for a few weeks - I guess I was busier than I realized!

Anyway

I had an ortho appointment last week so of course I've got to share it with you! I went in all smiles b/c I had gotten used to my braces since the last tightening session. In fact, I think I can even say that my braces were "loose" or at least the wire was. I had become very content with the way my braces were feeling, but I definitely knew it was time to tighten them back up!
I sat in the chair as directed and my Orthodontist (I think we were calling him Dr. X in past posts? well let's call him that again!) and he came over to take a look. He commented on how pleased he was with the movement of my upper teeth. They are not 100% straight yet but they are very close! Then he looked at the bottom train wreck of teeth and started touching them and rambling numbers and other ortho things. He told me that once he can get a thicker/stronger wire in there that I'm going to be amazed at how fast they move and reassured me that they'll be perfect. Then he called for an assistant to come over and he basically just gave her instructions on what to do with me and moved on to the next patient.
The assistant began removing my wires, as usual, then she popped a new top wire in and put clear rubber bands to hold them in place. Next she moved on to my lower teeth, removing the old wire. When she went to put the new wire in O M G! IDK what she did, but it felt like she was trying to rotate one of my bottom front teeth upside down! Holy Shit, it hurt like Hell! I literally thought she was going to pull my tooth right out. I made a noise and she could see the pain on my face so she stopped and asked if I was ok, to which I replied "no, that hurts really bad". She gave me a break, then started again and AGAIN it hurt like hell! She commented that my mouth must be sore and asked how long that tooth has been sore. But my mouth WASN'T sore and that tooth had not been sore at all prior to my appointment! Dr. X even called out to her to just wait and he'd put my new wire in b/c he could see that she was hurting me, but she popped it in before he could get to me and thankfully the pain was gone as soon as she got her hands out of my mouth! Oh yeah, she also knocked a band off one of my back teeth! Ugh! It was glued to the side of my tooth, not the kinda that go all the way around like a ring. But now Dr. X says we'll put a traditional band (like a ring) on that tooth since the other one came off so I left with spacers in the back tooth too. And I do have to say that while spacers made my mouth VERY sore the first time around. i barely even notice the 2 in there now.

So that was my appointment! I go back next week to get the band put on, spacers removed etc.


And for your viewing pleasure, here ar some pics :)

I have to confess that I'm not happy and a little discouraged with my lower teeth right now. While they seem to be moving and you can SEE the spaces between my teeth now (they were totally overlapping before), they're still really crooked and with the new spaces in between they just look like a mess! More of mess than even before! I sure hope they start lining up soon!

PS: Sorry if this post has a negative undertone, it's not meant to be negative. swear! :)

and...just b/c I personally really like to see any progress made, here's a quick collage to document it!