All my life I've kind of been not self conscious.. but maybe very "self-aware" of my teeth. I mean, they're just big, hahaha, kind of obvious. I have big teeth. However with them being slightly crooked and whatnot they just didn't do much to "enhance" my face and appearance, and I really wanted to change that.
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| Here's me in 2007 or 2008 probably.. awkward. |
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| weird expression I know, :P But it's a good one to see how my teeth used to look. |
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| morning before braces! :O |
So around December of 2009, I asked my parents If I could get braces, and in January of 2010 they booked my first appointment for February. I got spacers at that appointment, and surprisingly, that was the most PAINFUL part of the whole experience. But on March.17/2010.. I think it was the 17th.. or maybe the 18th.. or 19th. Anyways, that was the day I went in and got my braces on! It felt a little weird at first because when I talked It wasn't as easy to get my lips back over my teeth, but as the months went on it was all fine and I got completely used to it.
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| First day of braces. |
Weirdly enough, I didn't have to use wax after the first couple days until the final couple months over a year later. All of a sudden my braces were cutting into my bottom gums SO bad. Every time I chewed, talked, or even smiled, It would gash open the deep cut in my gums and cause them to bleed like crazy. Yeah, not fun when you're in the middle of a conversation. The worst part about that though was brushing my teeth would bring me to tears because the coldness of the toothpaste and the rough toothbrush would hurt soo badly against those cut gums.
I also had to use elastics a lot of the time. I'm not sure the exact time, but probably about 5 months in I had to wear elastics. At first they weren't that bad. I had to wear them from my front top jaw to my back lower jaw. However for the last 4ish months I had to wear triangles right in the front... which really sucked because they were super noticable, and they made it hard to eat!
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| Here's the front to back elastics. They weren't so bad. |
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| Here's the triangle elastics. Aren't they awful?! loool |
Other things I remember is having little springs which I got pretty early on. Hahahah something kind of stupid I did was I would take bobby pins, and attach them to the very front top wire in between the two brackets and it would just hang there. LOL I wish I took a picture of it! Thankfully, I never damaged any part of my braces though, which I definitely thought I would do at some point.
Finally after 15 months that went by surprisingly quickly, I was able to get my braces off on June 17th 2011. My last day of school too, so nobody even has seen them yet except for the few people from exams! It hurt when she clipped them off, I didn't realize what she was doing when she clipped them, but when she stopped for a sec, I felt my teeth and there was NOTHING THERE! She scraped off all the glue, let me brush, then glued in the retainers and I was good to go! :) It took about an hour and a half though.. long time but worth it. Some people say It only feels cool the first time you lick your teeth after your braces come off, but for me, I was in shock that whole week! lol, they were SO smooth and lovely.
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| lat day of braces! |
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| FIRST DAY WITHOUT THEM! |
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| haha, this is always an exciting moment when you don't need to grab a knife when you want an apple. |
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And that's pretty much a wrap. I hope everyone knows that I am EXTREMELY thankful to have been given the opportunity to get braces. I know they're expensive and not a lot of people are able to get them. I feel very privileged to have had them and feel very blessed. Thanks again parents :D ♥
