4 months with my adult brace – my 2nd tightening appointment experience

Posted on 6:07pm Thursday 7th Jul 2016

Today I went for my second brace tightening. The wire was changed for a much thicker wire and I could feel this as it was put on, like a pressure and the teeth feeling pulled almost instantly. I was told there is just one more wire size after this.

I also had elastics added today!

My orthodontist said she’ll see how the wire feels before deciding whether to add them today, but the wire felt fine. She always asks ‘is it eye watering tight?’, but honestly, it’s nowhere near. I could feel it’s tighter but it’s not unbearably uncomfortable or painful. Instead, it’s almost a satisfying feeling. So the elastics went on!

The elastics will start to move my canines further back into my mouth. The right canine needs to move a whole tooth space as it’s where my lateral incisor should be. I’m going to look really toothless for a while once it’s moved and I have a tooth sized gap at the front! My gaps at the moment are where my canines should be so from front on it’s not that obvious. My other canine needs to move back a bit to allow enough room for a lateral incisor shaped veneer to go over my random peg tooth!

The elastics are a stretchy row of loops which she wrapped around the brackets on my teeth to the back four brace brackets on each side. Almost instantly, like with the wire, I could feel the pull, but just one hour later (now) I can barely notice it. I think so far I’ve been very lucky with the each tightening. They haven’t made my teeth very painful at all. I wonder if I’ll notice a difference after a few days of the pulling.

I expect the elastics will make eating a little trickier as food is sure to get stuck between the elastic and the brace! Nice! I may have to be more careful with what I eat now. I’d been eating naughty things like very chewy dates even though I’m not sure I was supposed to. It was always fine though, but I feel such snacks could pull the elastics off? I forgot to ask my orthodontist, doh. It makes sense to me that the elastics would be the reason chewy foods should be avoided.

Exciting news…

I’ve booked the appointment for my bottom brace to go on! Eek! I’ll be a full brace face.

I have one more tightening appointment in August, then just six weeks after I’ll have my bottom brace fitted along with another tightening appointment. I’ve had a good transition into having braces as I’ve been eased into it. I’ve had time to get used to my top one before having the bottom brace fitted. Hopefully having the bottom brace fitted will be a breeze as I know exactly what to expect (touch wood!)