Brace Myself—I Got Braces

I am in jail—I just got braces that is. All the metal, the behind bars look, the permanent and lengthy sentence, pain and shame—yeah, that's pretty much sounding like jail to me.

I feel like a kid.

I got  braces today. They are ceramic braces and I got them applied to my upper and lower arches. The process took well under an hour and wasn't as long as expected for the 2 hours which I was quoted for. It wasn't painful either, merely uncomfortable, with the plastic trays which pulled my mouth open pushing at sensitive areas, like gums. The pain set in the pretty much well later that day, and my mouth felt like it had been punched for the week.

Please ignore the gum. It's key lime pie flavour and it's delicious.

My orthodontist put on what he refers to as clear ligatures around each bracket, but I know they're pearl because they have a slight tinge to them. He didn't even ask me what colour I would like because he knows I want them to be discreet. From what I've read about online, the pearl colour stains less than clear, and with the amount of no-no stainer things I drink—always through a straw now, mind you—they hold up well.

Before putting my lower archwire on, the orthodontist lightly and nonchalantly filed away at the spaces between my front two incisors. This was to make a little bit more room for my teeth to move back in the lower jaw. He also gave me some GC Recaldent Tooth Mousse paste to use on the area five times a week to aid in the formation of new enamel in those areas. The stuff is really great.

The elastic bands on either side are of the 'E' variant which I got from day one to wear 24/7 to fix the underbite. They are worn from the second last molars which have the molar bands and hooks, to the space between the second lower incisor and canine where the orthodontist has made a small loop in the archwire to hook onto. The lower archwire is doubled over itself in an interesting way and loops over all the molars twice. The bubble gum, I can finally chew, and is excellent and is key lime pie flavour.

Not to scare anyone, but I can't forget the very quite indeed pain of when the orthodontist slipped when using a pointy tool to apply the hard-to-get-on molar band of my right tooth. It was bad, is all I can say—and it happened twice.

I got molar bands on my top arches only, which I guess is a good thing. Less metal is more, don't you know what they say, ladies?

At first, it felt really weird, just like there was extra space in my mouth. Almost like my teeth had grown and they stuck out a little in my mouth against my lips. It didn't look all that bad either, which I was happy about. It looked as good as braces could look, let's put it that way.

And with that, I finally have braces. Am I happy about it? Well, I can't say I'm disappointed, which is a good thing. I can't wait 'til they're off already. I have to keep telling myself it's for perfect teeth.