orthodontic adventures

Day one of braces, January 24, 2013

Lily got braces in January. They are doing their job, for sure. Just looking at the photo shows how much straighter her teeth have gotten in the last couple of months.

March 17, 2013. Less than two months later and her teeth are straight!



I'm happy the braces are doing their job because they haven't been the easiest adjustment for her. First of all, she has a bead on the roof of her mouth that is supposed to help with a tongue thrust that she has. It keeps her from resting her tongue at the back of her teeth causing them to push out. She hates the bead. It makes it harder to eat and harder to talk, too. She often sounds like her mouth is full of marbles.

The other difficult adjustment has been having something extra in her mouth. She is constantly putting her hands in her mouth and messing with the wires. Constantly. This has caused the wires to come out of place on more than one occasion - usually at school. I hate having to take her out of school of anything and so it becomes frustrating when I have to do so for her braces between appointments. The last two times the wire has come out it's happened at school and the orthodontist has been out of town at another office. This means that we have to wait until the evening; or in today's case, take matters into our own hands. Today I got a call from the school that Lily's wire was broken and I was needed to come fix it. When I got there it was hanging from her mouth and there was no way that I was going to be able to fix it. I called the doctor and he is out of town. I tried cutting the wire with some fingernail clippers in my van. No luck. I called Tom and he rescued us. We met him at the local hardware store where he purchased some wire cutters and he preformed the wire cutting procedure inside Lily's mouth. Tom is a man of many talents.

I cannot wait to be done with braces.