Sporting events

Jason and I went to the Pistons game on Sunday because I was able to buy $10 tickets through my work for a special promotion. A great deal. Usually Jason and I get some type of treat at these events. However, I could not eat peanuts, popcorn, a hot dog, cotton candy (not that I'd buy that anyway), or nachos. What a bummer. I did get a $3 pretzel while I watched him tear through an entire bag of shelled peanuts. Oooh the excitement.

First week: A banana and the treadmill.

I have now had my braces for one full week. All has been going swimmingly in terms of pain or discomfort. My teeth feel fine. My head and jaw feel fine. My lips and the insides of my mouth aren't too damaged. I don't know if this pain-free existence is due to only having braces on one arch, opting for the ceramic braces, or because I have such a high pain tolerance. Ha. I doubt it's the latter reason.

I went to the gym for the first time since getting these on. I ran three miles on the treadmill and nothing adverse happened. The only bummer is that now when my mouth is dry, my lips can really catch on my brackets. Not a pretty sight, but I'm at the gym. I'm not trying to be pretty. The other fear that I ran into is trying to drink from a water bottle while running. Seems I'm fairly apprehensive to do this because I'm afraid of accidentally missing a step and jamming the bottle at my teeth and having something disastrous occur. I suppose this will lessen in time.

One big change for me has been the shake-up of my eating routine. I'm pretty rigid in this regard. I loved my oatmeal with walnuts. I loved having sandwiches for lunch. I ate apples and bananas nearly every day. Well I think I can still have the walnuts but I'll have to be careful to chop them up very fine. Sandwiches, unfortunately, are out. I suppose I might manage in the privacy of my home. But that's too much trouble and too much mess to deal with at work. Apples are out of my routine now. But I did eat a banana. I just broke it into pieces and shoved it towards the back of my mouth, so nothing would collect at the front of my teeth. Again, eating seems to be as much about aesthetics as about function.

I'm adapting.

By now most of my friends have seen my braces. There seems to be a unanimous conclusion that they really aren't that noticeable when I'm talking. I guess they could be lying and just telling me what they think I want to hear, and if that's the case, they are bad liars but good friends. I am definitely growing more used to them. When I look in the mirror, they no longer seem to make up 95 percent of my face. I do not feel nearly as self-conscious as I did in the first 24 hours. I'm pretty comfortable smiling and laughing. Occasionally I do cover my teeth as sort of a reaction if someone gets too close, but I'm wiling to bet that the gesture will fade soon enough.

The best part is that I am now on day five with braces and I have not had any pain, not even really any discomfort either. I have not taken any meds since the first day, I haven't felt the need. This is the best I could have hoped to feel and I'm grateful.

I went back to the ortho this morning for them to fix my unglued bracket. They said that can sometime happen in the first 24 hours if there is too much moisture on a tooth for the bracket to fully bond. The whole process was quick and painless. I arrived early and since they got me in early too, I was out by 8:30 and at work by 9 a.m. That was another relief. If everything else goes as planned, I won't be back until the middle of March. I am so excited to think about my teeth starting to move!

Get it together ortho people

I called my ortho's office and left a voicemail at about 10:30 p.m. as soon as I noticed the moving bracket. They were very kind to call me back by 7:45 the next morning. As I expected, the doc is not available today and so the next available slot is 8:30 on Monday morning. Guess I'll just be late to work again, have to work later into the night again, and then hope to make it to the gym by 7 p.m. at the earliest. What a lovely way to start the week.

Then my office called me a few hours later and left a voicemail. I thought maybe they were changing my appointment but it was a standard greeting from the receptionist asking about my first day in braces and saying unless things have gone wrong, they will see me in March. Um? Is there any communication between the people in this office? That place is not that big. That was a bit unsettling. And I guess it wouldn't really bug me that much if I didn't feel like the reason this bracket popped off in the first place was their fault. Sure, if I had been chomping some crusty bread, I'd take the blame for improper care of my teeth. But now they can't even make the bracket stick for 24 hours? Rather disconcerting.

The first inconvenience.

I realize that the majority of people who wear braces are teenagers and they don't mind interrupting their day for an appointment because most of them like any excuse to get out of school. Study hall? Let's cut class! Spanish? I want outta that one!

Well you don't get those luxuries as an adult. My ortho's office is between my home and work, but it's still about 30 minutes away from work, depending on the weather and the traffic. I have to make my appointments for the first or the last slot of the day.

I didn't mind that the initial bonding took as long as it did because my hope was that I would not have to come back for maybe two months. That would be a nice break in my work schedule where I feel like I'm always coming in late because of different appointments.

Well I was brushing my teeth the first night and a bracket came loose. It's still attached because of the archwire but it's clearly not helping the tooth to make any progress. Thankfully, it's not painful and no one would notice. But now I'm irritated that I have to go back for another appointment! Next week! And I already have a dentist and a doctor's appointment that week. So irritating.

Plus I don't think they can pop the archwire off, re-bond the bracket and pop the wire back in very quickly. This is because of that stupid small tooth that needed extra wires wrapped around it. They would have to be unwrapped at the beginning to take the wire out, and then re-wrapped at the end. Remember that was the one portion of the entire process that added to the length of time I was in the office.

The braces come on

My appointment to get my braces on was Thursday, January 29 at 8:15 a.m. They originally told me this should not take longer than 45 minutes. Well, due to a couple of factors, the whole process was 90 minutes. Definitely an annoying way to start the day and the journey of braces. First of all, there was a new orthodontic assistant doing some moves for the first time. Usually, I can be patient about this because I realize professionals have to start somewhere. Plus, she was really sweet (especially when I had a mild panic attack and started freaking out about all the stuff in my mouth and had to push her away and sit up — but I digress).

Well one of the brackets didn't bond. So after doing the whole set, they had to do another smaller round. Then one tooth was so tiny that something was holding right, so it needed to have extra wires around it for support. Well she had to call in backup for that elegant move, and of course that alone probably took 45 minutes.

I gotta say that the first day my mouth was fine. I managed to eat because I either had soup or mac n cheese or cut up a veggie burger into such tiny pieces that I practically swallowed them instead of chewed them. I took Ibuprofen regulary at 4-hour intervals. I took Tylenol PM at bedtime.

Amazingly, I woke up and still felt really good.