Braces at 30 | 14th Tightening | 22 Months | Before and After Photos

Posted on 11:00am Friday 5th Jan 2018

My last appointment was at the end of November so as we’ve had Christmas in-between it seems like a long time ago!

I was starting to feel really negative about the whole brace experience over my last couple of appointments. At first it’s all exciting as it’s a new experience, albeit a sometimes painful or uncomfortable one. When the brace first goes on the difference is clear to see. But after a few months and especially coming up to two years, the differences between each appointment are so minimal and sometimes it’s hard to tell any at all.

That’s not because my teeth are perfect yet either. There are plenty of gaps to close still.

But, luckily, this appointment was a lot more positive!

Here's my 22 month top row. See the end of the blog post for a timeline.

22 month adult traintrack metal brace update false teeth peg tooth wire fix

Overbite

I was also worried about my overbite before. I’d been wearing the pain-in-the-bum top to bottom elastics, yet at my last appointment my overbite had increased! It made me feel miserable as my least favourite part of the brace has been these top to bottom elastics and they weren’t even working. This time, they have been. My overbite is now at around 4mm from almost 6mm. So I’m thankful they are working as they are so annoying!

Annoyingly though they have possibly moved my teeth too much to the left somehow as my centre line is now quite off centre! So until my next appointment I’m only wearing one top to bottom elastic on the right hand side to try and pull them back over. We solved one problem and created another!

Bottom teeth aren’t far off either

The bottom teeth are close too. They have a lot more gaps to close, so we’re going to have some close together appointments to try and achieve this by March. I’m used to waiting anywhere from 7 to 10 weeks for an appointment, but I now have my next in just four weeks to change the elastics only and another appointment only four weeks after this too! So two appointments before we hit the two year mark.

After this we have booked in an appointment to take a mould for a retainer!!

Then an appointment to remove the brace and put on the retainer!

We might be getting ahead of ourselves, especially with the bottom teeth and numerous gaps there seems to be, but she says it’s better to book the appointments now and then change them to tightening’s or elastics being changed if we’re not ready.

I have a new set of elastics on today and the wires have been tightened, so I hope this and 2 more elastic changing appointments is enough. Then I can have them off!

Not the end of my journey yet…

That’s not the most exciting day for me though as I still won’t have my lateral incisors. They’re the teeth either side of your two front teeth at the top. So quite noticeable! Once I’ve had the retainer for around 6 months then I can have my false tooth and veneer fitted, then I’ll be done.

So fingers crossed I’ll be done in around 9 months!

Here's a timeline: