really really disappointed with this blogger

i wrote for about an hour the other day. posted pictures, went into complete detail about what was going on with my mouth in short (over a 3 month period) and went to sign in to write another blog...and nothing. it had completely disappeared!! said i didn't even have an account! HOW RUDE!!
so now..this version will be even shorter.
im a 24 year old female. i got braces march 14, 2011. i should have had braces years ago but my parents decided all of my other siblings mouths were more important. so here i am at 24 with crooked teeth and i have finally decided i cannot stand it anymore. i am at a place in my life financially, that i can afford it on my own..with no one else's help. theres a sense of accomplishment..of adulthood...and of saying, "HA mom and dad. i can do this ALL by myself!!" dont get my wrong. my parents are pretty awesome. my mom especially and if she had the money to give me, she would have. however..my dad likes to say he'll help..and doesn't. awesome. so that quotation is mainly for him.
okay so back to the beginning. my first appointment was pretty rough. i had JUST had a root canal done and was getting all patched up when my ortho (who is also my dentist) walked in and said, "so we're going to put on your top brackets today if thats cool with you" (i had my original appointment to get the brackets put on a few days later but because they had seen so much of me that week because of the root canal, they decided to do away with an extra appointment.) it was pretty painful. not the brackets being put on..but the fact that i had just had a root canal done an hour or so before made EVERYTHING seem 10 times more painful. the wire basically just felt tight and i felt like my lip poked out 10 feet from my mouth. but other than that i was good to go. i hurt for about a week and couldn't eat anything except mashed potatoes (thanks mom). i got ceramic braces on the top and had plans in a few months to get metal braces on the bottom. (the reason behind this is because my bottom teeth are much more crooked than the top and ceramic braces are softer and have more tendency to break than metal. so basically the heavy duty stuff had to go on the heavy duty mouth problem).

these pictures were right before my second appointment. my top teeth had already started to move some.




let me back back back backkk it up for a second. at my second appointment, a lower jaw expander was put in on my bottom teeth. it is attached to the metal bands on my back molars and i have a key that i have to turn twice a week..bleckk. i hate this stupid thing. i have a giant lisp and it leaves sores on my tongue from were it rubs against it. i had the ortho assistant change my ligatures because they were yellow (i learned this first month all the things i cannot eat and drink with ceramic braces; curry, cranberry juice, tomato sauce, etc. basically ALL of the good stuff). they kept the same top wire and told me that at my third visit they would change my wire. yay!!

these are the pictures of the awful expander. its as painful as it looks!!








okay third visit finally happened (this will finally get this blog up to date) at my third appointment my lower brackets (metal) were delivered, top wire was changed, ligatures were changed, and incisal blocks were placed on the back of my front teeth to fix my overbite. grrrrr. this thing is ANNOYING! as if i didn't have to teach myself how to talk without a lisp because of the expander, now i REALLY have to reteach myself how to talk! and i STILL have a lisp. of course i think its worse than what it is. worst part about it, the ortho said the blocks will stay in until i get my braces off (hopefully within the next year). the GOOD news about this last appointment is that my bottom jaw has almost expanded as much as it needs to to get this thing out!! wooo!!! when i go back for my next appointment it should be where it needs to be and then they'll leave it in for another month or two to make sure nothing moves back and then they will take it out. and ill have to teach myself to talk normal again!! the metal brackets are SUCH  a pain!! they leave indentions in my cheeks. the ceramic brackets are like heaven compared to the metal. the incisal blocks are a pain too. at first i had a REALLY hard time with them. if i would talk really fast i would bite down on the blocks really hard and send pain shooting through my top and bottom front two teeth. ouchie! im finding more now (3 weeks after these were put in) that im still trying to grind my teeth at night when i sleep. however, my back top and bottom teeth don't touch, so all the pressure is being put on my top and bottom front teeth. ill have to talk to my ortho about this at my next visit because im not really sure if thats okay or not. i really really wish i didn't grind my teeth. my teeth have moved SO much. my top teeth are basically straight and my bottom teeth only have two teeth that need to slide into place for all of them to be straight too!! its so exciting!! ill post again soon after my fourth appointment!! (in a week)
until next time,
braceface

these are after my third appointment. after my bottom brackets were put on.

and these are only 2 days later..shows how much my bottom teeth had already moved. ill take some new pictures tomorrow. they are basically straight now! woo!!