Hopefully I will be done soon. One of the assistants said maybe by Christmas. Now he is trying to get my bite right. He got my teeth straight but then my canines flared out everytime I bit down. owiee. He widened my uppers but then my molars weren't close enough together so now he is trying to get them to touch all the way again. I'm a trouble maker I tell ya. I'll try to remember to post some current pictures soon. I have to download them to my computer and my card reader has been having problems lately.

Opps didn't realize how long its been since I last posted. The retainer that I got for my top teeth did finally straighten out that top tooth next to the canine. The only problem was that it was quite a bit shorter than the other teeth. You can see that if you look at the last few pictures I posted. So my orthodontist being the nice guy he is put braces on the top teeth at no charge. Did I say he was a nice guy? He really is. This was all oh a few months back. He has kept the bottom brackets on now because he says he has to keep them on to move with the uppers so my bite will be good. I'll try and get pictures with this post but mini me always requires my attention , especially if I'm trying to do anything on the computer

. ok so luckily my dig pic's are date stamped. This pic is from July. I thought that I took more pictures than I actually did this last couple of months. I think that I actually got them on the end of may/begining of june. I'll take more soon and post them. My upper tooth next to the canine pulled down nicely. Not sure how much longer I have left. They look a whole lot straighter than they did after the invisalign. The first wire hurt some but not as much as the aligners did. Then the second wire HURT really bad but its alot better now. My son just got rubber bands on his. He is soo happy about it, says his teeth feel great! BBAAAAhhh just kidding he hates them. He says his teeth dont meet anymore and they hurt really bad for probably over a week. I dont have the posts on the back brackets like he does only on my canines so I highly doubt I will have to wear bands. They would have to either put more brackets on since they don't go all the way to the back molars or they would have to replace the last bracket with ones that have the rubber band posts. ha ha pssss. I'm such a nice mommy :)

The first picture was taken 2/27/07 and it shows me trying to bite down. I just went to the orthodontist yesturday for my monthly "tightening" , which is actually just getting a new wire put in and new little colored bands. This time I chose metalic green, pretty ey. The second picture was taken this morning. I'm able to close my mouth just a bit more. I found out yesturday that my molars should be touching. hmm. He said he will have to work on that. I thought it was just the bottom brackets keeping them from touching. I have no idea how much longer I have to wear them for. I have to wear my top retainer during the day as long as I have the braces on the bottom. Then as far as I know I only will have to wear the darn thing at night.



This is today bottom view.

Sorry this took so long to update. The end of Dec, when I got off work my right knee was hurting. I got home and went to bed and when I got up I couldn't walk on that knee and I had to crawl up and the stairs and scoot down on my bottom. I got into the doctor and he thought it was my knee cap. Both my knees appear to be pulled inward on both legs but only my right one hurts. He wanted me to do 4 weeks of physical therapy , wear a knee brace and take aleve for 4-6 weeks. To make a long story short, the physical therapy didn't help at all and my knee hurt worse after all this then when I started. I was almost constantly sick to my stomach from the pain. My physical therapist thought that I might have actually torn my medial meniscus. I went back to the PA (would have taken a month to see one of the doctors). He said he still thought it was my knee cap. He gave me a shot of cortisone and told me to see him in a month. I called my chiropractor who said he would order a MRI for me if I wanted. I said please Dr smith may I have an order for a MRI. I went in and the MRI said that I had a very large baker's cyst behind my knee and that it was highly suspicious for a medial meniscus tear. I got into one of the doctors at the orthopod (pod people they are :) ) He thought I had torn the horn of my medial meniscus and referred me to one of the surgeons. The surgeon said that it could be my knee cap or possibly a tear but wouldn't say either way. He said he has been burned before when he's done a scope and thought there was a tear and didn't find one and visa versa. He said we could try a synthetic synovial fluid and if its my knee cap it would lube the joint up and make it feel alot better or he could scope it and if there was a tear snip it out, if its a rough spot clean it up and also (probably ) do a release (that would put me out of commission for a few weeks. ecks). My husband wants me to try the shot first.The nurse said that if its a tear it will be act like a cortisone shot (took a week to work and by the second week felt like it had just about worn off -in other words won't help worth a poop). now I'm just waiting for the insurance to authorize- if they will. kinda a crap shot ey. Can't really afford a scope right now anyway. Not after all the physical therapy charges. ouch. that was $120-166 a VISIT for 4 weeks at 3 times a week! All I can say is thank you God for insurance and my flex/medical savings accounts.

Ok now back to the brace face story......


Here is my retainer. If your a gagger this will really suck for you. It goes way back in my mouth. Took me a while to get use to it. I still have a bit of a hard time talking with it. lisp lisp lisp. I got another of those clip things behind my naughty tooth and they bent the front wire to help push that tooth straighter.
This is my latest wire/clips I choose mint green for saint Patrick's day. It's kinda hard to chew with the bottom brackets on. See how my molars don't touch. Yes I take out the retainer when I eat. Doesn't make any difference on how close my molars are. The wire next to my canines are beginning to get straighter instead of going down on my canine then uuuppp on my molar. Don't know what that bended section is all about. As you can see from the past pic's its new. The past ones have just been a straight wire that is connect to each bracket and held on with a colored clip/ring thing.
My third wire/colored clips I chose was dark and light blue. Every time they change the colored round things they change the wire.

The second colored clips I chose was clear. I liked these. Christine is right they didn't stain at all. Maybe I should have chosen the clear brackets also. oh well

Went to my ortho today. My tops look pretty good but he is going to get me a retainer that I pick up Tuesday that has little springs in the back, on the outside edge of each of those teeth next to the front. Then he is going to sand one of the front on the bottom to make them look more even. If you haven't noticed already he put brackets on the bottom because the invisalign was unable to push back one of the teeth next to my bottom canines and neither canines twisted like they were suppose to. They feel weird, but not too much different than the bottom aligner because that one ballooned out across the bottom front and back. So bad in fact that I got a canker sore in my lip in front of the bottom. The difference is that I can't take them out to eat and my molars don't touch when I try to bite down. My ortho said that will change in about a week when my teeth get use to them. They don't hurt at all.


I went with gold brackets and pink little round things that go around the brackets. I was going to go with clear but the assistant told me that the brackets are bigger and the round parts stain really really bad so they are anything but clear.

The bottom of my top teeth touch the top of the bottom brackets .

Oh my top arch looks so much better. You can see what I mean about the tooth next to the front (left side on the pic) not twisting straight enough. Ortho thinks the spring thing attached to the retainer will be enough to straighten the tooth out a bit more.
Not sure how long I will have to wear the brackets. I go back in three weeks so we will see.