Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Something New & Something Blue

Tori has a surprise to share with you... can you see it?






Braces -- see? They let her choose what color rubber bands to put on... pink and blue. Awww... how pretty.


Now a days braces are different then they were 25 years ago. I never did wear braces, but had friends that did. Some wore big metal bands all around the entire tooth. Today they super glue a metal bracket right to the tooth. They line the brackets up so that when the teeth are straight, they will all end up in a straight line. Right now Tori's brackets on the two frong teeth are way low, see how the wire bends down.

Dan calls that spring wire, I think. The dentist told me it's wire that doesn't want to be bent, and it will straighten itself, pulling the teeth back into line. So -- her two frong teeth will end up going UP. She does have the metal band going around 2 teeth in the back. One week before the braces we went in to put spacers in.... these pushed the teeth far enough apart to put them bit metal bands around just those teeth. I can't imagine getting braces in the "olden days". Praise the Lord for medical advancements.

The third tooth from the front has a pink rubber band on it and the bracket looks like a J. In a few months her front teeth will be high enough to add braces to the bottom row. Right now her top teeth have such an over bite, they would bite off the brackets from the bottom row. So they have to move the top row first, then do the bottom row. THEN... she will have rubber bands going from the top to the bottom row of teeth to move them back and forth. They will hook on those J brackets. That's the unofficial plan. I have no idea what those things are called... it's what I'm calling them. Ü My friend Robin would know... what are they called Robin? She used to do that for a living.

The pretty pink and blue rubber bands actually are functional, they are holding the wire into the bracket. All along I thought the rubber bands were just decoration to make ugly braces cute. Live and learn.

She is taking tylenol for the pain.

Poor Baby!
We are noticing teeth a lot more then we did 1 week ago.
We probably will for the next 2 years.
Then it will be Mansel's turn.
Then Milo.
Then Danielle.
The verdict is still out on Wayne -- one can always pray!

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3 comments:

  1. Ow. Makes my teeth hurt just looking at those pictures! I was fortunate enough to have to suffer thru braces TWICE and oy.

    We're thinking A may get by without needing braces but our dentist has told us to start savin' for the other two's ortho bills. Double Ow.

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  2. Awww...looks painful. I've never had braces. Poor girl. They look good though. Not big and clunky like my friends of olden days. ;)

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  3. I feel for her, I had braces goodness almost 20 yrs ago and I have to say it seems like a very similar process that I went through. I disliked the bands around my mollars the most because I produce a sugar that reacted to the glue so everytime for months, when I'd go in for my monthly visit I'd have to have my bands glued back on and after one visit the nurse yelled at me accusing me of eating the "banned" foods, the ortho found out what she did, tested me and found I produced that sugar and put on a different glue (very simply) and said nurse had to apologize! :X

    Wax was my best friend, I still have scars on my gums from the braces getting caught on my gums, rubbing on them, etc.

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