Tuesday 14 April 2009

Divine relief

St. Appolonia - good with teeth!

I have been distracted from my favourite subject over the last few weeks by pesky exams, so it’s nice to come back and discover that four and a half months are now up on the clock. This could potentially mean i’m a third of the way through my journey to the big day! Really hope it’s the case as my brace continues to find new and devilish ways of tormenting me, and my underbite gradually worsens as the weeks go by.

The newest developments I have to report are extreme sensitivity whilst brushing around my molars and bleeding gums. Not sure what I’ve done to deserve this latest round of punishment as my dental regime is pretty good, but for some reason most brushing sessions in the past few weeks have led to varying amounts of blood on my toothbrush. I’ve managed to calm things down by re-introducing interdental brushes to my routine which seem to have done the trick, but it’s bumped my evening bathroom time back up to almost half an hour! Once i’ve got through the mouthwash, ordinary brush, pick-shaped brush, floss (the biggest time killer), interdental brushes, wax and mouth ulcer gel i’m lucky if I’m done in 20 minutes. What makes it worse is that A. gives his teeth a quick two minute scrub and is straight off to bed, and his teeth are as happy as Larry! It’ll be interesting to hear what Dr. H makes of it when I see him in two weeks. Does every other brace-wearer spend hours in the bathroom like this or am I setting some sort of new world record?

Happened to find out the other day that a certain St Appolonia is the Patron Saint of dentistry and tooth related problems. Wonder if she does braces and orthognathic surgery too? Might be a good time to offer up a few prayers as I could do with a bit of divine relief right now…

4 comments:

V said...

Hi love.. the worsening of the underbite is a hellish time to go through, try not to let it get you down though, and remember it's not always going to look that way.

I started suffering from awful gums in one part of my mouth after a long time, and actually invested in a WaterPik - it's like a hand-held jet and I have to say it made a big difference. It helps to get the food out of brace pre-brushing, rather than just brushing the food around, and then massages the gums. It was about 40 quid I think, but worth it and think I'll keep using it post-treatment... Dunno if the problems are similar to yours but may cut down bathroom time...

Bella said...

Thanks for dropping your URL in my comments. I love the name and concept behind your blog - very fitting! Best of luck with your journey :)

Anonymous said...

Yeah. my OS has to make my underbite worse also.....just when you though that your mouth could not look or feel worse....right....
How far out does your underbite have to be? Mine has to be 7mm....I'm only hat 3.5/4mm...so I got a few more mm to go

Discantus said...

Hiya V, Hope the recovery is going well. I'll definitely give the waterpik a go, so many people seem to swear by it!

Hi Changes911 - This isn't a question i've dared ask so far, i'm trying not to focus on how bad the underbite might get and just concentrate on the end result. How long to do you have to go until surgery?