I almost named this post ‘suck it up’, as after a reasonable amount of time moping, i’ve decided to give myself a good kick up the ar*e and get over it - there are so many people in a worse position than myself that I really shouldn’t be bleating on about how bad things are. It’ll only be a matter of months until my operation, after which I’ll be free to fix my work situation with a fabulous new smile to boot. Life is really too short to be miserable, so i’m back in the saddle and focusing on 6 more months of orthodontic fun and surgery anticipation to document in my trusty blog. My next appointment is in two weeks, when I suspect the dreaded elastics will be attached, bring it on!
Now that I’m way past the 6 month mark I’m tentatively starting to feel like a brace ‘veteran’! Newbie posts on Archwired.com make me come over all sentimental about my initial days in braces, and I’ve got the fine art of under-archwire floss threading down to a tee. So in the spirit of my newly developed wisdom I’ve decided to revisit my old assumptions about how life in braces would be, for the benefit of any of those reading this who are about to set off on their own journey. Here are the top 4 assumptions I made just before I was fitted up:
That I would always HATE my brace. – FALSE
OK, so it’s hardly my most flattering feature, but my feelings of loathing towards it dissipated surprisingly quickly once I was fitted up, and it wasn’t long before the hardware was blending into my features so seamlessly that I felt I’d had it on for years. I still sigh in disappointment over my increasing underbite and will bite through wood to get away from a camera pointed in my direction, but when I look in the mirror I no longer see myself plus hideously disfiguring metalware, I just see me.
That living with a brace would be a big deal – FALSE
Anticipation turned out to be far worse than reality. After so long fretting over other people’s stares, gossip, reactions etc it came as quite a surprise that most people really didn’t give a monkeys. I guess this proves that it’s easy to get emotionally tied up in what seems like such a huge change to us, but in reality other people are too concerned with their own day to day lives to care about our life-dramas. Had I known this before I wouldn’t have spent 6 months hesitating before taking the plunge…
The pain would be terrible – TRUE and FALSE
An inevitable part of the process really. Everyone has their own pain threshold and there have been a few low points along the way. But on balance I don’t think the painful periods I’ve gone through outweigh the achievement of getting halfway toward surgery. Would I be happy going through the same thing for another 6 months? Definitely - no pain no gain as they say!
That i’d get bored talking/reading about teeth and orthognathic surgery – definitely FALSE
Surely, I thought, after a couple of months I’d become bored of the entire subject – BUT NO! Even after all this time i’m endlessly fascinated by it, and like nothing more than to talk and read about peoples experiences who are going through the same thing. Can’t seem to remember what I did with all that time before my brace came along, hope I don’t miss it too much when it’s gone :)
Now that I’m way past the 6 month mark I’m tentatively starting to feel like a brace ‘veteran’! Newbie posts on Archwired.com make me come over all sentimental about my initial days in braces, and I’ve got the fine art of under-archwire floss threading down to a tee. So in the spirit of my newly developed wisdom I’ve decided to revisit my old assumptions about how life in braces would be, for the benefit of any of those reading this who are about to set off on their own journey. Here are the top 4 assumptions I made just before I was fitted up:
That I would always HATE my brace. – FALSE
OK, so it’s hardly my most flattering feature, but my feelings of loathing towards it dissipated surprisingly quickly once I was fitted up, and it wasn’t long before the hardware was blending into my features so seamlessly that I felt I’d had it on for years. I still sigh in disappointment over my increasing underbite and will bite through wood to get away from a camera pointed in my direction, but when I look in the mirror I no longer see myself plus hideously disfiguring metalware, I just see me.
That living with a brace would be a big deal – FALSE
Anticipation turned out to be far worse than reality. After so long fretting over other people’s stares, gossip, reactions etc it came as quite a surprise that most people really didn’t give a monkeys. I guess this proves that it’s easy to get emotionally tied up in what seems like such a huge change to us, but in reality other people are too concerned with their own day to day lives to care about our life-dramas. Had I known this before I wouldn’t have spent 6 months hesitating before taking the plunge…
The pain would be terrible – TRUE and FALSE
An inevitable part of the process really. Everyone has their own pain threshold and there have been a few low points along the way. But on balance I don’t think the painful periods I’ve gone through outweigh the achievement of getting halfway toward surgery. Would I be happy going through the same thing for another 6 months? Definitely - no pain no gain as they say!
That i’d get bored talking/reading about teeth and orthognathic surgery – definitely FALSE
Surely, I thought, after a couple of months I’d become bored of the entire subject – BUT NO! Even after all this time i’m endlessly fascinated by it, and like nothing more than to talk and read about peoples experiences who are going through the same thing. Can’t seem to remember what I did with all that time before my brace came along, hope I don’t miss it too much when it’s gone :)
