Tuesday 23 December 2008

Save the Archwired 1!

Did you see that the forum on archwired.com has been locked? Seems that the moderator has been getting so much stick recently from board users that she's had enough and shut it all down. I'm really gutted about this as it played a huge role in my decision to go ahead with braces and surgery. It helped me discover that orthognathic surgery wasn't some weird rare procedure to be feared, and that there are so many people out there going through the same thing. I was just getting into posting, and was planning to make the most of it throughout my entire journey, so to find it now disabled is very sad. Why can't some people just behave? If someone is giving up their time to run a forum like that they shouldn't have to put up with hassles from idiots so I don't blame the poor woman for dumping it, though I hope something can be worked out at some point in the future to get it back up and running. Can anyone suggest another similar forum? I've yet to find one that that matches the quality and content of archwired....


In other brace news, the lead up to Christmas day is proving most interesting as i'm still discovering what, and how, I can eat. My front teeth continue to be hyper sensitive so they're all but useless for the time being, but it hasn't stopped me putting away two roast dinners already. I do have to eat with my mouth open a little when I chew tougher food though to get some leverage from the back teeth, which is a little embarrassing in company or out in public. I've been dealing with this by raising my fingers to my mouth and looking away or down a little whenever I need to chew property. It seems to work and is not too obvious, or was until I was spotted by a colleague at our departmental Christmas lunch last week who hollered across the table "IS THERE SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE FOOD? YOU LOOK LIKE YOU WANT TO SPIT IT OUT!". Thanks, you arse!


Otherwise A has been much amused to see me eating mince pies with a knife and fork (much too sticky to rip apart), and hesitating at the point of biting into a huge turkey and stuffing sandwich, suddenly remembering I cannot eat that way any more - bugger bugger bugger!


Have a peaceful Christmas everyone :)

Wednesday 17 December 2008

Down and Up again

It's been a painful 9 days since I last posted. The ulcers caused by my lower brace rapidly grew to humdinger proportions and triggered off others to develop all over my tongue and mouth (i'm susceptible to them when stressed or under the weather), by Friday the pain was excruciating! Eating was terrible, speaking painful and garbled, and sleeping difficult as I was continually woken up by the throbbing. I spent the weekend doing very little other than applying various ulcer treatments every hour or so and moaning about my terrible misfortunes. By Sunday evening, however the pain finally started to subside and the ulcers began to slowly retreat, beaten back by continual applications of Clorhexidine, Adcortyl in Orabase, TCB, Anbesol and salty mouth washes. Please god don't ever make me go through that again! I always knew that wearing braces meant a certain amount of pain and discomfort, but any more episodes like that and I'll be banging on Dr H's doors begging him to put me out of my misery and take them off, which would really be a disaster. I'm praying it doesn't have to come to that.


So with the ulcers dying away I am once again looking forward to my favourite part of Christmas - EATING! Don't think i'll have to avoid indulging, just take it a bit slower and more carefully, which is probably no bad thing given the masses of stodgy foods on offer. Also sensing that there could be a lot of advantages to be gained out of brace wearing, e.g. "Do you mind if I don't help with the washing up? Eating dinner has given me TERRIBLE tooth pain and I really need to go and lie down" or "I'll have the last of the brandy cream as this pudding will be too firm for me to eat otherwise" and might even try "I'M the one who's suffering around here, so should really get to choose what we watch on telly". May aswell make the most of any sympathy :)


PS - I've put up a few of my pre-brace pictures but am really not happy with the format. Want to put up a gallery so I can show proper before/after shots and progress pics, currently working out the best way of doing this. Watch this space...





Wednesday 10 December 2008

Grouchy!

Well, the honeymoon is definitely over! I've had my lower braces on for 24 hours now and have been in a foul mood throughout. Eating is temporarily off the agenda because of aching teeth, and anything I do tuck into seems to embed itself firmly around the entire lower brace. I've got several pokey wires, and the new brackets are doing an excellent job of rubbing up canker sores along the insides my cheeks. Welcome to the reality of brace-wearing!


I guess my near-ideal introduction to braces left me somewhat off guard. The last few weeks have been so easy with no pain or sensitivity to deal with that I was really starting to think this brace-wearing lark was a breeze. Added to this the fact that the upper brace filled out my upper jaw a little and detracted from my underbite, I was definitely feeling good. Now the metal lowers have gone on i'm finding out why so much complaining goes on :(


Attaching the brace itself went fairly smoothly. My lower teeth are far more crooked than my uppers so there was some struggling to get the wire in place, and they kept instructing me to lie still - not easy when it feels like someone's pushing their fingers down your thoat! Afterwards I asked Dr H what kind of changes I should expect to see, he told me that first the teeth need to be pulled upright and then he can begin moving them around. I think my teeth look pretty upright already but he assured me i'll be seeing changes by christmas, should be interesting to see what happens. He also said something about fitting the 'steel' wires later on, not sure what that means but it sounds painful! This makes me suspect that i'm wearing some sort of intro wires right now, maybe to break me in gently and gauge how much discomfort I can stand before they wheel out the big guns!


So now i'm back to square one in terms of flossing,waxing, learning to speak and the whole shenanigans. When I put my night wax on I look like i'm wearing A's rugby mouth guard! Better not forget one morning and go to work like that...


(will post all my pictures this weekend, promise!)