My mouth cheeks hurt

Me this morning

I woke up this morning looking like a chipmunk with its mouth full, but considerably less adorable.  The bare wire that goes across the gap where I'm missing a molar has gouged a thick crevasse in the inside of my right cheek and IT REALLY HURTS.  My mouth cheeks are sore.

I think I'm going to compile a list of foods and recipes for people with braces, mainly for my own reference, but also because there seems to be a paucity of similar lists out there.  Maybe my compilation will help someone else with braces eat a little more comfortably.

Now my outsides hurt as much as the insides

I had another adjustment yesterday, where they put in a square wire.  Anyone who has worn braces can tell you that this kind of change will make you look and feel like you went 10 rounds with Manny Pacquiao (I'm pretty sure I've used this metaphor once already, but it's just so fitting).  The square wire is used more for making adjustments to the roots of the teeth once they've been mostly straightened with the round wire.  It's about as thick as a paperclip, which makes it very conspicuous against the clear brackets.  My mouth hurts almost as much now as when I first got my braces in November 2011.

It only seems fitting, though, to make me hurt as much on the outside as I do on the inside.  Actually, I would much rather hurt on the outside -- I would take the exquisitely tender achiness of being newly braced, the immobilizing agony of herniated discs, and heck, the nausea-inducing, incapacitating dizziness of labyrinthitis, over the heartbreaking anguish of losing a pet.  In spite of everything, it was comforting to know that among my brother, mom, and I, we have almost 500 pictures and 3 videos of Cooper, and I was able to assemble a nice tribute to him in the form of a Shutterfly photo book.

The demented zebra triangle affair

At my most recent adjustment, I had the brackets on my upper premolars removed and repositioned to persuade them to continue derotating. I also got a powerchain on the uppers again, which is also supposed to help. The combination of the repositioned brackets, the stronger wire, and the powerchain made my mouth hurt like I went 10 rounds with Manny Pacquiao without a mouthguard. The worst part of the entire ordeal?  The little baggies of 3/16" elastics emblazoned with a demented-looking zebra.  I have to wear them in a triangle configuration to help close the open bite I developed on the right side of my mouth.

So, now I have about 1/8" inch of wire that needs to be trimmed because it's tearing the bejeebus out of my cheek (either my teeth are moving fast, or the ortho assistant jammed the wires into the molar tubes haphazardly).  Getting an emergency appointment at my ortho's office is, pardon the pun, like pulling teeth.  They only work at that particular location on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Friday mornings, and apparently were closed yesterday (or took an extremely long lunch break).

In the extremely unlikely event I have kids and they need braces, I will make sure they get them right away.  It's pretty demoralizing to be an adult wearing these things.  Everyone says, "Oh, I didn't even notice them!" but seriously, it's pretty hard to miss the huge, gleaming mass of metal inside my mouth.  The ceramic brackets on my upper teeth are supposed to be nigh-on invisible, but the wire sure isn't.  From the side, the ceramic brackets just look like I have hugely dirty, deformed teeth -- and yes, I have gotten weird looks from people because of this.  Overall, I'm glad my teeth will eventually be "nice", but I would have never done this voluntarily.

Adventures in orthodontia

Yesterday, I had my second adjustment. The orthodontist was practically giddy to see how much my fang had moved! In the two months I've been braced, that canine has moved into line with the rest of my teeth, and you'd never be able to tell that I had dealt with a malpositioned tooth for more than half my life. That tooth's companion on the right side looks out of place now, since it is rotated about 20 degrees. It used to be the "normal" one -- I assumed it was what the fang was supposed to look like had it not erupted in the wrong spot.

Now, here comes the fun part. In order to derotate my maxillary first premolars, I have a power chain that goes from one of these molars to the other (in other words, it goes across all the top teeth that would be visible when I smile). It seems to make the ceramic brackets less conspicuous, which is nice, but I've read that clear power chains stain more easily than do regular ligatures. That's bad news for a habitual coffee-drinker like me, and I certainly don't want to have the thing changed every two weeks because it turned yellow. The orthodontist said I would probably have to wear the power chain for 3-4 months, which I'm assuming will cause me a fair amount of pain. *sigh*