Here we go!

Welcome to my blog! The purpose of this blog is to document my progress with adult braces and to share my experience with the world.

I have always had embarrasingly crooked teeth. Unfortunately, since we didn't have a lot of money growing up or any insurance, I was never able to get braces when my peers were getting them in highschool. As a result, I have spent most of my life being self conscience about my smile. I always smile in a way that doesn't show all of my teeth and do my best to cover them up when talking. Many people I know don't even realize how bad my teeth actually are, but since I am fully aware of it, it bothers me. My husband didn't even really know until I showed him a couple weeks ago and he said "Wow, your teeth really are crooked." Gee thanks, hun..

Now that I am a professional working adult making my own money, I decided to start researching braces. I also have great insurance benefits which cover $1500 of adult braces which certainly helps! I had a consultation with my orthodontist and was given an estimate of 15 to 18 months of treatment (which of course I am taking with a grain of salt). My x-rays, models, and photos were done on May 16 and the braces will go on on May 31. At the x-ray appointment, they also put spacers around 4 of my molars where the bands will go.

As for spacers, they have been an interesting experience in and of themselves. Three of my molars have rubber spacers around them which are like bright blue rubber bands. These aren't so bad. They just feel like food is stuck between my teeth that I can't pick out. The forth molar has metal spacers, however, because the crowding was too tight to fit the rubber ones in. This one is a real treat. Imagine having a piece of metal jammed between your teeth that jabs your gums each time you bite down. I have had to stop biting on that side altogether and am actually going back tomorrow to see if they can replace them with more rubber ones. I was told that after a few days, there may be enough space to do so.

Now I am going to post some of the most embarrassing pictures I have ever shared with anyone, let alone the entire Internet. These are my "before" pictures. Please ignore the quality. Do you have any idea how hard it is to take closeup pictures of your own mouth? You can easily see how bad my crowding is in these pics. You can also see that my teeth aren't the whitest in the world, but I'll fix that once the braces are off. Blame it on coffee. In the first picture, you can also see my lovely spacers.