With my upper teeth in a more appropriate alignment, it was time to fit the lower braces.
So again, I was plonked into the chair, reclined back and told to relax. The good thing is that I knew all about the pumice, conditioner, wash process. It is over quite quickly again, it just seeeeeems like forever when you are sitting there.
The cardboard guard is put into place to stop the gums from rubbing against those lovely scrubbed clean teeth and after the brackets are positioned and cured with the light, the cardboard is removed.
However in the short space of time it took to do all that, I managed in my un-relaxed state to forget to hold my mouth open at one point and closed my teeth onto Dr Levinson’s thumb…he was either being very kind or I didn’t bite hard enough as he didn’t say anything and I thought it best not to mention…no really it was an accident, a mere momentary lapse of concentration…
The upper wire was replaced with another stronger rectangular profiled wire, and the lower wire was a nice gentle round wire, just enough to get things started.
The first meal with a full set of braces
As it happens it was my husband’s birthday, so after my typical teenage son did his ‘haa haa haa’ dance when I revealed my now full set of shiny braces we set off for a nice Japanese meal at the local tepanyaki restaurant. Well this will be OK I thought to myself, when the upper braces were put on I really had no difficulty eating and there was very little discomfort other than my gums getting used to the rubbing, so the first meal should be fine.
The combination of the new lower braces pressure, that square wire in the upper braces, me forgetting to take any pain relief and not having any wax…Well let’s just say I swallowed lots of large chunks of food that night due to the fact that my mouth was learning to cope with more new accessories!
Luckily dessert was a nice soft apple pie and icecream…mmmmm soothing icecream
As Dr Levinson explained, part of the ‘benefit’ of having sensitive teeth when those braces are fitted is that you are not inclined to accidentally bite down too hard and hit your teeth against the new metal brackets. In my case, there were 2 that I could only just feel, however I can imagine that if I was able to just chomp normally into food that there would be a good chance I would forget and either dislodge a bracket or damage an upper tooth…so I will appreciate the benefit of the tenderness as I make my food choices!
