not swine flu

I've been fighting off a cold for more than a week - not enough sleep lately - the new face has increased my popularity ;) This weekend the darn thing hit me hard. My lungs hurt, my voice is almost gone, and I have a very painfully swollen lymph node on the right side, just under my ear. That's never happened before! It's so close to my jaw ... I wonder if it got disturbed with all the surgery and stuff and is now more sensitive.

Anyway, it really hurts, so I took some of that leftover red painkiller from after the surgery. Damn, that stuff is strong! I think it's past its best by date, but it hasn't faded at all. I have to go renegotiate my mortgage now. (lol!)

retainer foolishness

Last night I wrapped my retainer in a paper towel. It was really stressful! I was at a new improv class and didn't want it in while I was there (I hope no orthos are reading this), and I'd forgotten to bring my little case. I didn't want to leave it loose in my bag, and wrapping it up seemed like the only decent option. It was like the "going into the basement" scene in a horror movie! Terribly foolish yet inevitable.

I used a excessive amount of paper towel so that it wouldn't look throwawayable, and it did survive, but damn that was nervewracking!

teeth whitening

The first food-related thing I did after debracing was to bite directly into a strawberry in public.

Next I really wanted to get my teeth whitened, so after my Thursday dental cleaning appointment, I bought some whitening gel. My old trays don't fit anymore though, so I've just been rubbing small amounts onto my teeth and leaving it there till it wears off. I hope it's not too poisonous!

The thing is, when I leave the trays in all night, my teeth get super-sensitive in a "nails on a blackboard" kind of way. I read that most of the whitening happens in the first hour or so anyway - then the gel sits there doing nothing except sensitizing your teeth. So lots of brief little whitenings might work better.

Also, my teeth just don't get very white. I think the enamel is clearer than average, so even if I remove all the stains, you can still see through to the inside of the tooth, which is much darker. They can get to a light ivory shade, but never to the white white you see on some people.

So ... they still look yellowish to me, but after comparing them to the teeth of random people on the street, they're actually pretty good.

life without braces

... is awesome!

I went in with my fingers crossed on that Monday morning. Dr. Wong thought about it a bit, then decided to remove them. It wasn't painful or unpleasant at all! The brackets themselves came off with a little snap, the bands took some tugging, but just a little, and then the cement took about 30 mins of grinding to remove. And then 4 days of freedom before getting the retainer.

The retainer is a little purple sparkly one with wire - it's called Hawley, I think. When I was a kid I had the Essex (clear and mouthguardlike) on top and a permanent wire down the bottom. I like this one better, though it's still a bit of a pain to put on and take off.

I'm meant to wear it 24/7 for two months, then probably 16 hours a day for a few more months, and then nights only for a while. My teeth don't seem to be moving though. It gave me a little tooth-moving pain for the first day, but now if I leave it off for a little while (shh), I don't feel tightness when I put it back on. I certainly did with the other retainer. Not sure it it's a property of the retainer itself, or if my teeth are more stable this time.

The retainer is great in one way ... at first I got used to being braceless so quickly that I didn't appreciate it as much as I wanted. But having a little bit of wire in my mouth reminds me of having braces ... the difference is that I can take it off!

i'm free!

countdown

A few hours to go ...

The funniest part of my last appointment was right at the end when Dr. Wong asked Terri to set up an appointment with enough time for a possible but uncertain debonding. She gave him the best "yeah right/wtf are you thinking" look I've ever seen, like ... yeah right, she's going to come in all happy and smiling and you're going to say "oh sorry, not today".

Well, we'll find out soon!

last night in braces?!

I really should have posted this earlier ... perhaps I'm afraid to jinx it.

My final SureSmile wires arrived last Monday, so I visited Dr. Wong on Tuesday afternoon to have them attached. I'd asked him if we'd be able to remove the braces before the weekend of the 18th, since I'll be away with friends at a beach house for a few days. He didn't sound very hopeful at the time.

But it turns out that my teeth had moved really well! He inserted the last set of wires and told me to come back on Monday (ie tomorrow), for a possible debonding! (They don't seem to call it "debracing".) He didn't want to promise anything, because it'd be a shame to cut my treatment short after getting this far. So they're not coming off for sure. But my fingers are firmly crossed.

I can tell they've moved pretty far in the last week, which gives me hope. The one after the canine was clinking on the tooth below it, but now I can't make them touch at all. I also have some very tight criss-crossed elastics on both sides, which has pulled the left side nicely into place. I'll take photos tomorrow morning before heading out.

This time tomorrow I might be free!!