Freedom Comes in Stages

I had my appointment with my Dr. H yesterday to get my retainers. The weekend without anything on my teeth was nice but short-lived. The retainers look much nicer that braces but they are so tight! I am thankful, though, that I can take them off to eat and clean my teeth. Any, by the way, cleaning my teeth rocks now! I can brush and floss my little toofies in less time than it took me to brush my braces. Fabulous!


I hope that Dr. H isn't reading this because I took my Dremel tool to my lower retainer today. The wire that hooks over one of my molars was sharp and scratchy and was therefore irritating the bottom of my tongue on the left side. I tried to just bend it over a little bit so that it would curve down onto the surface of my tooth but it didn't want to budge - so I did the next best thing - I sanded it down a bit. I rounded over the end of the wire so it wouldn't scratch my tongue. It is still plenty snug but now it hopefully won't bug me so much.

With any luck, in 3-6 months I will be able to go to using the retainers only at night - which will feel like real freedom. Right now my teeth are that familiar level of soreness that I got with any adjustments to the braces. I am sure that within a few days I will be over the soreness and the retainers will become just another part of my daily routine.







I took a picture with Dr. H and my tech yesterday and they had no problem with me posting them - so here are the folks that have spend so much time listening to me talk with their hands and pointy instruments in my mouth.