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