Quite naively I believed that as I got towards the end of braces I would have less hardware in my mouth, but now that many of the teeth are just about where we want them, it’s important to minimise their opportunity to move – so as well as my recontour I also received new wires (upper and lower), a chain from 6 to 6 to stop any spaces from opening up, and posts.
I also still need to wear the elastic on the left side only.
The ends of my wires have been bent upwards too so that they won’t move through the brackets promoting movement as they have been able to freely do in the past. This of course has presented it’s own issues as my squidgy cheek rubs back and forth over the hooked end of the wire and becomes slightly inflamed it then gets hooked on the wire and gets more inflamed…it’s a vicious cycle!
It usually only happens when I talk too much and my cheek rubs over it too often. Magic wax to the rescue! It’s nothing that a big blob of waxy softness can’t fix, and it only needs to be there overnight for the inflammation to go down and stop hooking onto the end of the wire.
I love you magic wax!
All this extra hardware means one thing….more stuff for food to get caught in. The worst part about the chain is that when I push my tongue to the front teeth to try and clear the braces of food the papillae (those little bumps) on my tongue get caught and pinch.
But I have developed a new cleaning procedure – a squirt of water pushed through from behind the teeth to help dislodge recalcitrant food debris. It makes your lips and cheeks move in strange bulges…of course not to be done when people are looking. But it works if you can’t get to a brush and better than the alternative of having your last meal on display.
