I have seen other people being presented with their elastics, with fun animal names like Bear, Impala, Monkey, Penguin, Kangaroo… and now it is my turn!
This visit I needed a lower wire change, upper remains the same, and hooray my buttons were removed! They really didn’t bother me from a discomfort point of view – my tongue has long since adjusted to their presence – it was just the food getting stuck around them that was particularly annoying, so I was well pleased to be rid of them, even if it did mean having a whirring drill bit thing in my mouth…
After a lesson from the lovely Kate on how to apply the elastics (Lord only knows how people with really large fingers manage to maneuver these tiny little things!) I managed to get it almost first time.
Application on the lower tooth is easy – there is a little hook on the brackets on the larger teeth. The trick is in holding on to the tiny little elastic long enough and stretching it out enough to slip it over the bracket on the upper tooth. Not being a mouth knowledgeable kind of person they told me what tooth, but it really meant little to me, so lucky for the little sticker on the back of the bag as I am sure I would have been applying it to the wrong tooth and dragging my teeth in all the wrong directions.
So, day 1 with elastics… I managed to hook 2 teeth instead of 1 every time I changed them, I definitely needed the mirror to get it right, and also I definitely needed to keep checking the sticker on the little bag to make sure I had the right tooth.
I decided not to take it out to eat and see how it went. All in all not to bad, food did get a bit tangled up in it and when I tried to use my tongue to dislodge it I dislodged the elastic instead…not to worry…I just need to remember to replace it.
Overnight, I guess being quiet and still, the elastic had a chance to really get to work, and I woke up with the 2 connected teeth quite sensitive…however that was it! After I had taken some pain killers, that was the one and only time that I really had a discomfort moment…throughout the day it was barely noticeable…I forge on confident that I will be the Queen of elastics in no time!
