My Braces Journey (Putting on Braces!)

This post is way overdue, but finally the day arrived for me to put on braces!!!

03 Aug 2016 -  $800 downpayment +$37 dental kit. Putting on braces for the upper set of teeth!

I overslept and was late for the appointment for almost half an hour, and the dentist said she will postpone the scaling and polishing to the next session and will put on braces for my upper set of teeth. 

First, she examined my teeth once more before gluing the brackets onto my teeth. Then she opened all of the sliding doors on the brackets and inserted the wire and closed the doors to secure it. The excess wire that was protruding out was cut away. All this took about 30 minutes. 

As soon as I was done with the upper braces, the dentist asked if I felt uncomfortable in any way. I answered no and was hurriedly "chased" out of the room. I recalled that the dentist told me she was putting on the upper set for me first, and I thought that's like a pre-empt for me and she would carry on with the lower set immediately after the upper set. Apparently, it wasn't and I had to leave the room immediately. I had no time to ask why the lower set wasn't done on the same day. (I assumed the condition of the upper set of teeth is more serious than the lower)

I'm not sure if it was due to the reason that I was late and it affected the entire line of patients, but I felt like the session ended very abruptly. I did not know that my lower set of teeth would not be done today as I was not told about it during the previous consultation.

The receptionist handed me a tablet and told me to watch this short video on how to take care of my teeth now that I have braces. After the video, she gave me a set of oral care products and it included mouth wash, toothbrush, interdental brush, wax and some brochures.

This is me with the upper set of braces!!!

Dental kit = $37 excluding GST 

*I only used the mouthwash for about a week as I realised it attracted ants even though I capped the lid tight. Sometimes I will find a drowned ant in my mouthwash too.

Also, the interdental brush is not really portable so I left it at home to dig out scraps of food stuck in between teeth and underneath the wire. I bought a pack of mini interdental brushes (cost about 4$ from Watsons) so I can clean my teeth after meals.

01 Sep 2016 - $220 + $90 scaling and polishing. Putting on the lower set of braces!

The dentist seemed to be happier as compared to my previous visit. I asked her the reason why the upper and lower braces are done on separate days. She told me that some people have a lower pain tolerance for the lower set of teeth, and why she did it separately is to allow the patient to adapt to the upper braces, before putting on the lower set a month later. Initially, I thought that my upper teeth are more crooked (ie more serious) than my bottom teeth. But I was also told that my bottom teeth are more crooked!

We proceeded on with doing the scaling and polishing that we skipped the previous session and then to putting on the lower braces.

Tadah!!

As you can see, my upper set of teeth, esp the bunny teeth is so much better already!!!

Today is day 2 of me with full braces on, the lower braces are making my bottom front teeth sore!!!! I don't think I feel as sore as compared to the upper braces the previous month. I can hardly bite anything (even with my back teeth) and brushing my teeth hurts. My inner lips feel swollen and I hope I don't have ulcers!!! The dentist told me to apply lots of wax but we shall see.

It looks like I got to wait for a few more days before I can go back to my normal diet. For now, yoghurt every damn day hahaha.

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After the placement of braces, the remainng sessions are more or less the same, where you go back to the dentist to have your wires changed.

13 Oct 2016 - $220. Changing the upper wire

26 Nov 2016 - $220. Changing the bottom wire

11 Jan 2017 - $220. Changing the upper wire

23 Feb 2017 - $220. Changing the bottom wire

06 Apr  2017 - $220. Did a second X-Ray. Did a re-alignment of two brackets on the upper teeth, and a change of the upper wire.

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Changing of the wires took a relatively short time (less than 5 minutes) so it is all good. Except there was once whereby the dentist had to re-align two of my brackets after an x-ray. I'm not sure if it was mis-aligned in the first place or the dentist had to shift them to improve the movement of the teeth. But oh wells I can only trust my dentist right?

Anyways, I have switched over to another outlet (but still attached to the same dentist) as it is located near my office and I can go there during lunchtime. I will update about my braces in another post. So till then!