Late Feb I had a visit with Dr Levinson at which he said those magic words…”I think it is time to take those braces off!” Well I would have kissed him had he not still had his latex gloved fingers poking in my mouth.
I bounded out to the front desk and dutifully made my deband appointment – 2 weeks and the journey would all be over. Now I am so excited I can hardly contain myself, but decide not to tell the family and play a bit of a trick on them to see how long it will take for them to notice…I’m tipping quite a while!
It was with a little bit of nervousness that I attended the deband appointment, you see my back teeth do have a number of fillings and they are a little sensitive to the air and water jets, and given my normal state of phobia about dental goings on in my mouth I felt the panic rising just a little.
I advised Darren and the lovely Rebecca who would be assisting him to remove the braces that I was worried about my rear teeth. In his normal reassuring way he simply smiled ”Don’t worry, we’ll be careful, which teeth?”. Just to be sure I basically pointed to all of them (since they are all filled anyway), hmmm….not leaving them much room for movement!
Well with my ‘panic’ signal in place, the clipping began. Actually removing the brackets from the teeth was nothing, the only time it was a bit ‘twingey’ was the lower front 4 teeth. Darren explained as he did it that these were often more sensitive as they are the smallest teeth in the mouth, and yes…I felt it…but it was over and done with before I could even raise my panic finger.
I ran my tongue over my bracket free teeth, disappointed, as I had hoped that it would feel surreal in the way it did when I first got braces, but the glue blobs still being there detracted a little from the wow experience.
We settled back and Darren and Rebecca started the process of meticulously grinding away the adhesive. A completely and utterly painless experience, marred only by my rising panic that the water jet would touch a sensitive spot, but those guys were amazingly attentive and I did not even so much as get a twinge.
Now for that amazing WOW….I ran my tongue over my now smooth teeth…nice! But the most surreal part was when you start talking. I have heard other patients say that it feels slimy, and I totally agree. Once you start talking, your lips just seem to slip all over those teeth…it is a really funny feeling.
All that remains is some fluoride, a bonded retainer to be fitted to my rear front teeth to make sure they hold their position for all eternity, and some moulds for the retainers to be made from, I got to select a sticker and the colour (purple with sparkles in case you were wondering). Then the lovely after shots – smiling, lips curled back, inside, profile.
Now I get to run out and share my smile with the world.
