So with half of my upper teeth bonded with those tiny little brackets, we prepare for part 2. Pumice, conditioner, wash, cardboard, glue, bracket, UV light….nice.
See ya Dr Levinson, and my friendly auxiliary Darren joins the fun. By this stage at least I have released my killer hold on the arms of the chair and have had a minute to run my tongue and lips around the brackets. They feel weird of course.
So my first wire is positioned. This is a quite lightweight wire that is used just to get things started, not too much for the teeth to cope with, and it is quite malleable. Darren explains that it is made from titanium which allows it to sustain enormous pressure and still return to it’s original shape! Clever stuff! The technological advancements in braces over the past 5-10 years have been fantastic which allows us to have better results with less discomfort in a shorter time.
A couple of my back teeth on either side (they call them ‘4’s’ I think) are quite close together and Darren needs to employ a few tricks to get the wire into both brackets, then snip and one side done. The other side is the same but requires a bit more fiddling, and quite frankly that tooth has been filled a few times and I am starting to panic that it is not going to cope well with the pressure! (just an aside….of course this was all investigated prior…but hey in the heat of the moment…panic sets in!)
The bracket itself becomes unstuck, and has to be rebonded, which is done very quickly and effortlessly and we try again. Success, all gates are closed all wires snipped and I’m all done!
When those pliers come towards you and you know they are going to snip a wire at the back of your mouth there is some concern! When I use pliers to cut wire it flicks everywhere…so again I have visions of this tiny shred of wire pinging down the back of my throat…but no….it stays on the pliers…I guess they thought of all that when they designed the system huh!
So I tentatively sit up and take a look in the mirror…I can’t believe it! The deed sir, has been done!!!
So now will the fun begin and will I end up a blubbering mess begging for mercy or will I cope? I mean I have had 2 kids for goodness sake….how bad can it be???
