Braces: Week uno

I had every intention of posting a pic on here of the holes the periodontist cut in the roof of my mouth, but when I looked at the picture it was too disgusting.  So, I'm sparing you the gore of seeing it {aren't I so nice?}.

Monday morning I traded in my smile for {as my brother so eloquently put it} a grill.  I paid a little extra for the Clarity brackets, which aren't as sturdy as metal but aren't NEARLY as noticeable. 

I was expecting my orthodontist to start pulling down the impacted teeth then, but he said we're going to wait a month or two first.  I think he wants to get the other teeth straight, and give me a chance to get used to braces first before he starts worrying about adding a bar and chains to the mix.  I only have upper braces, and my wonderful doc told me to chew LOTS of gum for the next week or so to help with the soreness.  {My nephew is SO jealous!  His doc nixed all gum for him.  Poor kid.  My doc GAVE me gum!}  They gave me my little kit full of teeth cleaning doo-dads and told me to expect to be pretty sore in the morning.  Brushing isn't as labor-intensive as I thought it would be, but FLOSSING?!?  Holy crap!  I have NEVER put THAT much effort into flossing in my LIFE!  I have one of those flossers that you change the little head on just so I don't HAVE to put effort into flossing!  Sadly, that little flosser thing doesn't work when you have a bar in the way.  They gave me a pack of flexible needle looking things to help thread the floss through the bars, but wowza.  What a process.  I used 3 pieces of floss that first night mostly because it kept snagging and fraying on the brackets, and partly because my teeth were so tight from the spacers that THEY frayed the floss.  Sheesh!

Tuesday morning:  pain level - not bad.  I was surprised.  I didn't need any pain killlers until that afternoon.  Go me!  Chewed LOTS of gum, talked funny, whistled through my braces if I talked too fast, realized how much I snacked before, got lots of funny stares from Maelee, sympathy from Madi and teases from Clint.  Also realized that I now look like a 15 year-old girl.  Still, all in all braces aren't so bad.

Wednesday morning: pain level - not bad.  Starting to think that I'm pretty tough and this whole mouth re-shuffling this will be a cinch... stupid, stupid, stupid to think that.  After breakfast I'm swishing my mouth out with water and off pops my first bracket... off one of the impacted teeth!  I call my orthodontist and he tries to re-attach a new one but my gums are oozing and bleeding too much for the glue to stick {lovely image there for ya!}.  Now, my doc is an upbeat kind of guy - almost a little too much at times {he told me that the oral surgery wasn't going to hurt at all, piece of cake!  Braces?  No sweat!  There's no pain at ALL!}, but when he looked at me with that look of "what I'm about to ask you to do makes me hurt to think about it", I got a little worried.  For the next 5 days, I got to brush that lovely hole in the roof of my mouth as hard as I could stand to for as long as I could stand to, every time I brushed my teeth.  Why?!?  The answer is twofold;  1: so the wound wouldn't close up because I was making it bleed and 2: by brushing the crap out of the gums, I jump-started the healing process, thereby forcing them to stop oozing.  Yeeeeeeeah, that's what I thought too!

Thursday-Sunday:  IBProfen and I are best buds at this point and without my little white pills I will die.

Monday morning:  My gums are so swollen that I can barely see the tooth anymore, so I skip brushing the hole after breakfast.  Luckily, the swelling goes down enough by my appointment that there's enough tooth visible to attempt again.  As my doc is cleaning the tooth, I'm not sure if it was intentional {him checking to see something or trying to make expose more tooth} or accidental but one of his tools nicks my still swollen gums surrounding the hole and it starts to bleed.  He says, "Well, it's still oozing and bleeding a little bit" {I'm thinking, "You don't say!!}  He was able to attach a new bracket, but isn't 100% positive it will be a keeper.  That roughly translates to I have to eat VERY carefully until my next adjustment on the 28th, when he will check to make sure it's going to perma-stick.  If it falls off before then, he first instructed me to keep brushing it to keep the tooth exposed, then changed his mind and said that we'll just have the dentist re-cut the hole when he removes my baby canines. 

Let me just say for posterity that braces aren't all that bad.  They barely hurt a week into this whole thing.  Brushing isn't so bad, flossing is getting easier.  I'm starting to learn how to talk without whistling.  I'm still adjusting, but everyday is easier and they get less and less noticeable to me.  The holes in my head, on the other hand, SUCK.  There is just no other word for it.  It sucks.  And if that bracket falls out and I did all that brushing for nothing I'm going to cry and then hit someone.  You've been warned local peeps!  :O)  I'm just hoping that all the pain I have ahead of me is over by fall and I can only have normal braces stuff to worry about because at this point, this pathetic one week point, I am SO ready for the scary part to be behind me.

On the upside I've lost 7 pounds in the last 2 weeks, so I guess even misery has it's perks eh?  LOL