Brace Yourself – Part 5

Getting braces was definitely an exercise in will. The funny thing being that after getting my RPE – adjusting to the crap in my mouth and nearly losing the lisp – then getting the RPE off–missing all the crap in my mouth — I got a lisp again!

For the first two weeks I wanted them off and regretted my desicion. I couldn’t eat anything solid, the feeling of my teeth touching was excruciatingly painful, in fact the feeling of anything touching my teeth was excruciatingly painful, the braces rubbed and punctured my cheeks raw (yes there was blood) and half of anything that I did manage eat got stuck in that annoying little space between the gums and the braces. This also meant that I ripped up my tongue trying to get that stuck food out.

The waterpik that I got for my RPE proved to be invaluable during that time. Because even with the “superfloss” and those threader things it was a HUGE pain to floss (which is the only way to get food out).  With the water pick, I would put in some water, mix in a cap of mouthwash and get that shit out.  I loved that thing.

Although I got a packet of dental wax and a packet of dental silicone (which you’re supposed to use to help with the braces and the cheek-rubbing) I was hesitant about it because that meant that my cheek would stay sensitive, and anytime I didn’t put in the silicone (which is a pain to put on in the first place considering your tooth AND your bracket have to be dry to get it on) it meant my cheeck would get ripped up again.

The pain would subside after about a week, and in another week I would have my routine dental visit with a new wire in! Yay the pain is bacck!

I lost my snacking habit (this is probably one of the good things that came out of braces) because it’s really hard to crunch on anything when you can’t bite, and my bite probably went through… oh.. say… 29834719248723 different configurations.

I started dating that cute guy that told me I was beautiful and slobbered all over him during make-out sessions (it’s even harder to close your lips when there’s about 20km of railroad tracks taking a nap on your teeth). And he didn’t care. That’s real love for ya there.

Getting braces is a major thing and I had to make changes, but eventually I adjusted. I started cutting my apples into bite-sized chunks instead of ripping into them like a starved orphan. My diet changed, because cutting apples is a hassle and was more “soft” food(rice etc0 oriented than “hard” food oriented(nuts etc). Noodles were a challenge because not only could a HUGE chunk wrap itself around my braces 10 times and sew my mouth shut, but also because of the 89374329875 configurations in my bite, sometimes hanging on to a noodle with your teeth while it’s slithering down the back of your throat and making you gag is kind of hard when your teeth don’t touch.

Eventually I adjusted to these things and just toughed out the rest of the braces. After the initial shock, your brain (and nerves) are kind of numbed by anything else the dentist tries to throw at you. “Oh really? I need elastics again? And this time it’s 6 elastics at once instead of 2?..Ok”. The numbness also goes to the nerves and the adjustment period becomes shorter. Instead of being in pain for a week after every wire adjustment I was only in pain for 4-5 days. After that I could eat my rice again!

Next time- pictures of me before, during , and after.

Bah

I don’t want to sit on the lemon tree

Brace Yourself – Part 4

After getting my RPE painfully removed and suffering through the three days of hell I went in to get the braces applied. To my mild surprise it wasn’t nearly that bad. It was possibly the quickest and most painfree dentist visit I’ve ever had, not counting check-ups all things considered. I had this done during an extended lunch hour and all in all it took about 2 or 3 hours total. The dentist had the braces lined up and ready to go (from the molds he’d made during the RPE removal) and the way he did it I thought was actually pretty nifty.

(I should probably mention that just like everyone else I got spacers put into my teeth for those three days but that pain was hugely overshadower by the RPE removal and insertion before and after every meal).

First things first though, I had to have my rear brackets put on first. Another 10 minuites of vigorous reefing on my mouth is how this got accomplished. Some brackets(there’s only four) didn’t fit properly and being the perfectionist that he is he decided to take them off and put another one back on. That’s fine, this will be a lifelong change and I don’t really mind but it was still pretty painful.

The brackets on the front were the fun part(no really). He attached the brackets where he wanted them on the molds he had of my teeth and then put this green stuff all over it(yup, not blue, green , what a diverse world we have). My teeth were then dried and etched (involving acid) and the green things were put over my teeth. The green stuff was then cut away with a scalpel and what was left were pretty little brackets. All that was involved after that was inserting wire (which feels “tight” at first) into the brackets, and maybe some elastics (which also feel “tight”) and I was done! Little did I know that that “painfree” I mentioned earlier, it would only last for about 6 hours.

Let me explain/reiterate some things. Braces are designed to move your teeth through bone. The principle behind them is to apply a constant force (which may not be altogether huge, unlike a punch) over an extended period of time. That involves a lot of pain. Well Duh Helen you say. But I’m telling you, this is far more than you can ever imagine. I lost an enormous amount of weight during my first month of braces because it literally never stops. Some people will find this varies and I was definitely more sensitive than some other stories I’ve heard but even then. I couldn’t even open my mouth for the first week let alone eat. I got these things called elastics, which are designed to give the braces that extra bit of uumphh. Unstretched, these elastics are about 6mm in diameter. Stretched, they “should” acommodate your daily mouth-functions: eating, chewing, talking- all the fun stuff. But here’s the kicker. The more stretched an elastic is, the more it wants to be unstretched (thus applying a greater force). And guess what those daily mouth-functions do? They strech the effing elastics. I got two in each side.

Your teeth aren’t designed to move. They don’t want to move. You brain does it’s uttermost darndest to let you know that. With pain. Usually pain indicates “Something is wrong and YOU have to fix it”. You know, you fall, you kiss the boo-boo better. You break your arm, you stop doing shit with it and put it into a cast (thereby insuring the lack of doing stuff with it). But there’s absolutely nothing you can do with braces except grin (or in my case whimper) and bear it.

Brace Yourself – Part 3

The first day I got my rapid palatal expander (I love how gory that sounds) I was so upset over my very sudden and unexpected change of state that I ended up throwing up in the bathroom of the restaurant for my friend’s going away party. Yeah I smiled and laughed at the party, but it was all dampened by the apparatus in my mouth. I felt like the black duck who couldn’t talk. My friends obviously thought it was really funny to hear me talk because “Helen has a lisp! Say ’spaghetti factory’ Helen! Hahaha”. This is pretty understandable, and in retrospect I would have probably laughed at myself too. At the time however, it was only funny for the first five minutes or so.

As the month of expansion went on I started sporting a ginormous gap between my two front teeth (which didn’t help with the lisp at first) but my brain eventually adapted to that new thing in my mouth and my lisp almost disappeared. I still drooled in my sleep, since it’s pretty hard to control the way your mouth is (open or closed) in your sleep, but that was fine since I slept alone and the only person that was inconvenienced was myself.

What did start happening is that I got reallllly bad breath. Something you’d expect to smell from a dragon who has feasted on less-than-fresh princesses. Since the RPE is permanent, and covers your palate all those tiny food particles that you barely managed to chew up in the first place get stuck between your palate and the apparatus and it’s very hard to get them out. I got one of those waterpik thingies and that helped, but there was still stuff there. My dentist suggested rolling up a bit of paper and shoving it there. It worked but was pretty painful (when your gums aren’t stimulated for a long time they become REALLY sensitive). The breath issue went away mostly, but there are always spots you can’t get at.

The month from hell eventually ended and I had to wait out another two months for the new soft tissue between the two plates of my palate to harden (otherwise your mouth just shrinks back down again). The gap stayed and hence there’s only one picture that my supporter at work cajoled out of me. My then-boyfriend and I broke up. I lost a pretty significant amount of weight before that since he liked calling me “chubby” and the whoe braces thing was just the last drop in the bucket for me.

It wasn’t all bad though. The super-cute guy from the mechanical engineering department would come over and talk to me at every opportunity and tell me not to cover my mouth because I was still beautiful.  That made me want to smile, and eventually I started getting over the whole mouth-issue and smiling for real.

One of the most painful moments I remember is the removal of the RPE. Dental science is pretty advanced, you’d think that they would have developed a cement-solvent that doesn’t damage your teeth by now but noooo. You see, the cement that cements your teeth to the apparatus has to be removed manually. This involes what my densits likes to call “applying a shearing force”. I sat down in the chair and was told to open my mouth, and the assistant told me that “this might feel a bit uncomfortable for just a second”. My ass. My 6′2 densits then proceeded to reef on my mouth with all his might. I literally thought all my teeth were going to fall out. This was followed by massive amounts of blood (did I mention that gums get really sensitive when not stimulated enough? Make sure to floss kids). Then the rest of the cement that didn’t disintegrate from the “shearing force” needs to be chipped away. At this point all the teeth that have been covered for three months are a sickly white-yellow spotted colour, and all my gums are bleeding. Then molds with the blue icky stuff are taken again and because we can’t have the teeth move between now and three days from now(you’d think it wouldn’t be that much) the apparatus goes back on. This involves snapping it to the already hurt and bleeding mouth and teeth and gums. Those three days were hell. All the teeth aren’t used to having a force applied to them anymore and even the simple action of closing your mouth is excruciatingly painful. You see the force of the teeth touching is too much for the sensitive gums to bear. I ended up walking around with my mouth half open all day and got no sleep at all. The cycle would go like this – dosing off – mouth open, drooling – start falling asleep – mouth starts closing gently – teeth touch — and you are jarred awake with the pain. Not fun.

Next time – the braces appication and the first week of picking crap from out of your teeth.

We interrupt your regular programming to bring you the following announcement..

I biked to work today! For the first time!! In the ass-crack of the morning! Yay me! You’d think that after having done 70 km in one day this would be no great feat. But it was hard and cold and icky but I’m happy I did it anyway!

Brace Yourself – Part 2

My teeth weren’t that crooked, but I suffered from a slight overbite and what I like to call “Fangs”. My canines were elevated and there wasn’t enough room for them without some preparation for the braces. My lower jaw was generally straight but since my upper jaw was getting changes, it would need to be reshaped to accomodate the changes in my upper jaw. So off we go to the dentist and thereby beginning the next year and a half of biweekly to weekly dental visits. My dentist was enthralled to hear that I wanted braces and work began pretty much right away.

The first thing that got done was to get molds of my teeth done so that my dentist doesn’t need to stick several rulers into my mouth to figure out what needs to be done precisely. It’s a pretty exact science based on ratios, but the true skill comes from predicting how, where, and how fast the subject’s teeth will move. As everyone’s mouth is unique this can be quite hard and sometimes adjustments need to be made quite hastily. To get the mold of the teeth my dental hygenist/dentist’s assistant had to use this blue putty that is usually cold and very gross-feeling. Imagine having someone thrust a dental tray several sizes too big into your mouth to the point where your cheeks bulge out and you can’t close your mouth. This dental tray is filled in a cement-tasting blue putty. My gag reflex is quiet sensitive and since the dental hygenist has to get ALL the teeth (yes, the ones at the back too) I have always had a hard time with this. The putty needs time to harden, usually between 2.5 and 3 minutes. Fortunately since I only had my braces for a year and a half I only had to have it done three times.

I’m not sure what they do with the blue putty after, but eventually when I got back to the dentist’s office (about a week later) there were great molds of my teeth. My dentist is pretty up to date on current technology, so the appointment I came in to see my dental molds, his first apparatus from hell was already waiting for me. Before I could have my braces applied room needed to be made for my canines. Some orthodontists do this by removing teeth, but my dentist decided that it would be better to not remove anything permanently (and I have to agree with him).

The begining:

About a three or four weeks into my second co-op job I went into the dentists office to have the rapid palatal expansion installed. This was to be permanent for at least three months. The one shown here is not mine, and my teeth were in better shape, but otherwise it’s pretty much identical. No it doesn’t just “fit” over your teeth. Permnanet cement ensures that the teeth move in conjunction with the jaw. This is to widen the jaw, as the palate is not solid bone. There is a joining smack dab in the middle of the palate which needs to be forced open. The idea behind the RPE is that the subject has to insert a screw into the little mechanism in the middle and turn it thus expanding the apparatus by 1/4 millimeter either once or twice a day. This is done for a month. Essentially you’re breaking your own jaw. And yes it really is as painful as it sounds. Everynight I would go through a ritual of jumping and whining and convincing myself that this was necessary and then do it as quickly as possible. The pain is undescribable and doesn’t go away as soon as you stop turning. After turning that wretched screw I would run around the house clutching my mouth with tears in my eyes for at least 15 minuites, at which point it would subside to being bearable.

The pains however I found was the least of my problems. I was a reasonably confident girl before getting braces, and was gnereally pretty chatty. My co-workers didn’t think I needed braces, and when I got my RPE installed I did it during lunch (you know, glue, smack, and that’s it, not really much too it when you walk into the dentist’s office and everything is ready for you) they were less than impressed. Let me explain a couple of things to you. SInce this plastic has to be cemented to your teeth it has to fit over your teeth. That means that your teeth no longer touch when you close your mouth. If you look at the picture again you’ll notice that it goes over the entire palate. You will never know how much you use your palate until you lose it. I came into work that morning a coherent funny girl, and I left work that day in pain, incoherent, and with a severely bruised ego. My mouth didn’t close all the way and unless I was concentrating on keeping my lips closed they would open and I would drool (involuntarily) and had a lisp to the point that it was impossible to understand me. Obviously my co-workers thought this was completely hilarious.

When I went over to see my then-boyfriend (some foreshadowing perhaps?) I was already looking for some affirmation that I was still attractive, but he was not an initial supporter to me getting braces, and just laughed and told me “What man would want you now”. Eventually this led to my realization of the fact that the person you are with needs to accept who you are and support your decisions in life but I’m getting ahead of myself. What he said to me was a huge blow to my self confidence, and it got worse. Since your teeth still stay in bone despite the palate expanding I started sporting a pretty killer gap between my two front teeth.

Another problem was the fact that since plastic is now covering your teeth it’s really hard to chew things. Hence my diet of living off yoghurt, food shakes, and occasionally food that’s been thrown into the food processor began. So when you put it all together, you get a lisp, drooling in your sleep, and basically chewing capabilities of an 80 year old without dentures, and some pretty low self confidence. I started covering my mouth when I talked, and a smile was even more rare. I’ve never had any problem before getting my ideas across and one of the most upsetting times that I remember was when I was trying to explain my development idea to my boss and he interrupted me saying “Helen, I’m sorry but I can’t understand a thing you’re saying, can you just email it to me”?”. Although my friends got a kick out of watching me try to eat (ever try to chew a banana without teeth?) their support was only skin deep and eventually I moved back home to save money, and get a bit of support from my parents.

Brace Yourself – Part 1

Just over two years ago I was in a completely different spot in my life. At that time my dad became eligible for dental insurance through his work and I decided to get braces. At 20 years old. This resulted in a cascading set of changes in my life (some good, some bad) that amongst other things has put me where I am right now. When I was thinking about it all my straighttoothed friends encouraged me saying that “it’s all worth it” whatever “it” may be. All my not-so-straight toothed friends didn’t really see anything wrong with my teeth and didn’t understand why I was making a big fuss.

I’m the kind of person (I like to think) that tries to improve herself constantly in all aspects. I’m working towards a degree in Computer Science. I’m trying to better my skincare. I’m trying to get more fit. I try to read interesting books and keep up on current developments and science. There are certain things I can affect (like not getting upset over the little things, or reading a certain book) on my own and certain things I can’t, like moving teeth inside bone. So when the opportunity arose to get half my orthodontic bill paid for by an insurance company, this also became something I could better myself about. Because really who are we kidding, the outside matters too, and although my teeth were nowhere near mangled, they were also not perfectly straight.

The interesting thing about my decision to get braces was that I went into it completely uninformed. Yes I knew the science behind how braces worked (apply a constant force and the cells on one side of your tooth are absorbed by your body, and the new cells are made on the other side of your tooth, thus moving your teeth one cell at time). But when I asked a bunch of people whether I should get braces, the response I got was either overwhelmingly negative, or overwhelmingly positive, but no-one saw fit to tell me the pros and cons of getting braces. As a result there were some surprises, hopefully with this post it won’t happen to you.

When I asked people who had had braces about their experiences the general response was that “it’s all a bit hazy, but now I have an awesome smile so yay”. My theory about why no-one gave me a concrete response is that they had braces during their teenage years, and that experience is suppressed and filed away along with all the other angst in the back of their brain. So when someone asked me about my braces I tried to give her my most objective opinion. That surprised her and she said that no-one had ever told her that before. What am I talking about? The pain. I have to warn you that the following descriprtions are going to be quite graphic. I got my braces done at a stellar dental office, and generally I think that my dentist is one of the most competent people around. I am forever thankful to him for this.

The next post will contain the beginning of my brace-story.

EDIT —Just an FYI – Yes this is a bit of a sob-story. Yes some parts of it are sad and unhappy. I am writing about this for two reasons: I think that I had a pretty objective view of the physical implications of braces which might help a few people if they’re contemplating braces and since this is something like a retrospective recollection of events I find it easier to write about than some arcane subject that has nothing to do with me and the words flow easier which makes it a good thing for me to write about. —

When The Price Is Right

As some of you know I’ve been quite unhappy with my “new” laptop for quite some time. To make long story short this is a laptop I got from a London Drugs Insurance Agent after my baby got stolen, and as such I didn’t get as much say in what I wanted as I would have liked (she didn’t even bother to Google my old laptop’s specifications firchrissakes!). So I got the baby-replacement and was less than impressed if you remember this blog post. This issue eventually spiraled out of control to the point that I had to bring the Toshiba back into London Drugs with a list of problems (yes, a list). The clerk patiently listened to me as I rattled off my list and asked if I could have another laptop instead, and if not if I could at least get a downgrade to XP (because as we all know, Vista sucks hairy monkey balls and ass and everything else on the hairy monkey at the same time because it has that much suckyness). “You mean upgrade” he said, “No, I mean downgrade” I retorted (who’s he trying to fool? The ComputerScience-Helen doesn’t put up with that shit). After a couple of minutes where I could tell he was counting to ten (while vehemently bashing out my list of problems on his keyboard) he said that “No, because this laptop is designed for Vista,” and that “if it doesn’t have a sticker saying it was designed for XP” there was nothing they could do. My only response at this ..this..*goes to look at dictionary for an appropriate word* ..this mendacity was to laugh in his face. Needless to say it didn’t make the guy like me anymore than he already did.

Eventually we got the laptop issues typed up on that damn computer of his and he said “It’ll be two weeks before our guy can look at it” uh-huh “Ok, do I get a replacement laptop?” , but no it doesn’t work that way. So I sucked it up and waited for my laptop to be fixed. When the replacement guy called he said he could only confirm one of the problems on my list, but thankfully that one problem required the replacement of the mainboard and that hopefully my issues would be resolved with its replacement. Another three weeks later I have the laptop back in my hands, and I’m still less than impressed.

So I’ve decided to sell it and get something that meets and/or exceeds my expectations. I am a Computer Scientist after all. Computers are my livelihood. As my quest for a good laptop began I consulted my trusty friend www.notebookreview.com, as they’ve never let me down as far as my opinion differing from the reviewers opinion. In a bout of nostalgia I looked up the review for my baby and found out it was an extremely positive one. As the bout of nostalgia continued I decided to do a search for Averatec in Google and found their website, and lo and behold luck is finally on my side! They’ve released a new ultraportable and my trusty review website says it’s good! My quest for a good laptop has ended exactly where it started several years ago. At Averatec. My dear dear Averatec, I’m sorry, I’ll never leave you again.

On a side note, anyone want a decently new Toshiba Satellite Pro U300? Tiny scratch on the screen and hugely bruised ego from endless streams of verbal abuse from owner. Lemme know if anyone’s interested.

Thinking: Butch the Butcher

So I was going to go to A&W for lunch yesterday. I don’t get fast food very often as usually I either a) prepare a tastier meal b) recoil at the bubbling fat on the burgers (really if you squeeze them it comes out) c) would rather go hungry. Anyway, so I was all “Ok, I guess some grease globules in my blood can’t kill me if I do it twice a year” and I walk up to the counter. I have this nasty habit of actually looking at people when I’m talking to them unlike a lot of people (yeah, how dare I have manners eh?) and the cashier (who was female) was sporting a pretty huge mustache. So I look over to the cashier on the other till…and she also has a mustache. So I sneak a peek behind the counter at all the other women working at this location…and they all have mustaches…coincidence? I think not. I mean really, if you work at a food place you’re going to eat that food right? Right. So I went next door and had a delicious Gyro instead.

Putter Putter Posting

So my internet’s been down the last forever. Hanging on by a thread between bouts of productiveness at work. If you’ve sent me email to gmail lately I don’t know. Because it’s blocked at work. As a friend of mine put it..’weak’. Guh