2/10/09-- 4:00 pm So I was fast tracked to get my braces on because I was afraid my dental insurance would run out soon (different job). I shopped around, Western dental quoted me around $5,400 for clear braces with extractions and a 22-24 month treatment. I had my 2nd consultation on the 10th of February, with a dentist who was reputed to be the best deal with other bay area bloggers who did their consultations and homework for me :) So the total case fee ended being $5,5000. Yes, I know quite expensive, and I never considered my teeth to be that bad (see before pics). This is for a 18-20 months treatment with the damon system of self litigating braces (no bands, flexible wire, less tension) which breaks down to a $350 diagnostic fee, which my insurance covered, an estimated $1600 delta dental payment, my out of pocket $1000, a retainer fee of $350 at the end of treatment and a balance of $2550 to be paid in 18 monthly installments of $142. My orthodontist was doctor Kevin Carrington, coming highly reccommended off the berkeley parent network. Also here=> http://www.yelp.com/biz/carrington-kevin-dds-orthodontic-center-the-oakland .... His prices are supposedly cheaper than most orthodontists in the area, he is well staffed and charismatic, and although he's a 'non-extraction orthodontist', he definitely reccommended it for my crowding issue, but now I'm having second thoughts. Nonetheless, he is willing to stop treatment when I go to grad school in the fall.
The Damon system and extractions are supposed to reduce my torture time. This is great because I consider myself to be a hedonist, and a gourmand, so getting braces is really incompatible with my lifestyle, except my vegetarianism. Further, I don't like long term committments and irreversible obligation, they give me anxiety, and I start to panic when foreign objects are in my mouth, [insert bad pun here]. For example, I started freaking out when my dentist put sealants in the grooves of my teeth to fix my teeth grinding issue. This obstructed my ability to chew normally. Ergo I started to have a panic attack and took a knife and started to manually remove the sealant. This is how I feel my braces journey will end if I don't have anxiety meds or marijuana to calm me down.
2/13/09-- 7:00 am, I go in to get the molds, gagged a couple of times, but he was real attentive not to go so far back in my mouth. We do some x-rays so he can show me, why with the angle of the outjet of my teeth, why it is vital to do extractions. He wants to take the 1st bicuspids, but I want him to take the second ones, because they look horrible with the amalgam fillings, and I won't miss them so much. He says he only needs to make room on the lower jaw, but because all extractions must be done symmetrically, 2 healthy, well positioned uppers must make their exit as well. My worst nightmare is my teeth looking like this, which to me is quite noticible I would prefer a full smile, and I'm afraid of the sunken in cheeks and lip look some people get, that compelling arguement is found here.
2/27/09-- I make a early appointment at 7:50 to get the braces put in. So I made sure to eat all the foods I could get for my last meal (rubios mmm). They prepped my teeth with the cement, placed and sealed the brackets with the uv light, save the 1st bicuspids which are leaving, and a few that wouldn't fit because of the irritation that it would cause my gums, they put something else in their place. I was done with the wiring and post treatment care education by 9:35. So I couldn't have nuts, candy, gum, soda, corn chips, or gummy treats- no big deal, I don't really have many of these things anyways. my concerns were eating at all! I am a gourmand, I don't like having to cut up my foods in small pieces. I like to chow down, savor, swish the food around in my mouth and then swallow/ any other way us gluttons can ravenously devour our comestibles. The procedure, painless, and uninvolved. It didn't hurt right away, my teeth are super sensitive to pressure, hot and cold, so it felt initially like a tingling I get when my teeth have been exposed to cold. This constant dull aching soon started to eat away at me mentally, as well as my tongue going over the new landscape in my mouth, my lips fight to close as the brackets make my already crowded mouth too full, and I was starting to panic. I didn't know how long I could cope. I went to work, but couldn't focus. I started to get hungry, but didn't feel like sandwiches. I went afterwork to Jamba Juice, lovely, yet not completely satisfying, so I make a run for the border, tacobell, hoping burritos fell under soft foods. I couldn't eat fast, my teeth hurt with each bite, they felt sore, and eating added insult to injury. I knew I was attracting strange looks by how I was eating the burrito. I ate to one side of my mouth, as the right side was less sore and more aligned, and I was ripping the burrito to shreds with my fingers to make it manageable, because I didn't have the bite power to rip it apart. I stubbornly persisted until I finished, my gums were throbbing, my teeth already felt misaligned, making it hard to chew and bite down like I'm accoustumed. Worst of all was the clean up. Was I really going to have to brush my teeth after every meal? Was I really going to have 1/4th of my food entangled in my brackets and wires so that I won't be able to conversate during a meal for 2 years?
2/28/09-- I took a 600mg tablet of ibuprofen to sleep the night before, along with imbibing a nightcap of malibu orange. My gums are starting to swell and develop sores, (note puffiness of cheeks in braces after pics take today) I feel like a wire is poking and low and behold I feel a bracket come loose (see pics). Its dangling and rattling, and of course my tongue is all over it like a fat kid on cake, and I am starting to feel an anxiety attack. I grab so tweezers and try to open the loose bracket. I call Dr. Carrington and leave a voicemail about the bracket and 2nd thoughts on the extraction and for them to contact me first thing monday morning. I can't handle this bracket issue, and I google this for information to rid myself of this annoyance, and I find that it will take a professional if I don't want to damage my expensive bracket or my teeth. ::Sigh::
So being ingenious I take some floss and tie the loose bracket to the lateral right tooth adjacent to it. I am hungry again. I felt that waxing up the brackets would make it easier to eat food. Wrong. The wax was over done, and shifting inside of my mouth, eating with the wax would dislodge it and ruin the meal. Imagine eating chilli with candle wax, not very appetizing. I have been eating a lot less lately. I only felt up to eating once today. As a vegetarian my diets are restricted enough, now to further restrict it to soft foods is making it hard for me to satisfy cravings. I hardly ever eat candy, those don't satisfy like savory foods do. Also I never liked tea or coffee, and I gave up sodas in 2003. So to have to give up nachos, cookies, and perhaps even juices that may deteriorate the cement or dislodge the bands is making me cranky. Moreover, I am associating pain with eating instead of pleasure, eating has become more of a chore, and I no longer look forward meal time. I eat out of sheer neccesity at best. Everytime I open my mouth the metal scrapes along the gums up to the lips. I try not to talk or smile to avoid this. The taste of metal in my mouth doesn't mesh well with the meal. I tried pouring on the orajel, it numbs the pain, but the pressure persists, and its very temporary. I don't like when this numbing gel touches my curious tongue, it kills my tastebuds and thus my desire to eat. I am wondering if the long term costs will outweigh short run the benefits.
My boyfriend is very empathetic and supportive, he went through hell for 10 years with all kind of machinery to fix multiple issues with the jaws and teeth, but I tried kissing, and I just don't get the same suction and juicy pucker as I did before. The pleasure and passion is ruined by the feeling of pressure on my lips sandwiched between his lips and my train tracks, not to mention my poor tongue. The long and short of this blog is No more oral pleasure ;)
The bright side is, believe it or not, I can see the visual positioning differences already. I use the tooth where the bracket fell off as comparison. It is working, but not fast enough. I remember the america's next top model episode where the models agreed to getting veneers for all of their teeth instead of braces. It looked painful, but it was a quicker way to achieve these results, Here is what that model says about it. If this doesn't work out, I'll look into this to fix my crowding, overbite and perhaps TMJ issue. As for now, I will take some vicodin left over from my wisdom teeth extraction and call it a night :)
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