Welcome to my latest Braces at 30 blog post where I share my experience of wearing a brace as an adult with updates from each appointment.  I had my braces fitted when I was 30 years old.  I’m now 32 and have had braces on for over two years!  Below I share what happened at my latest appointment.

Here’s my last update if you missed it: Braces at 30 | 20th Tightening Appointment | 27 Months

Aaaaaaah nightmare.  I am typing this as I have just got back from both the school run and the nursery run which were immediately after my tooth extraction!  This was not planned and I would not recommend timing it like this!

I was meant to be having my peg tooth extracted in the morning at 9am.  Ben was working from home for the day and doing both the school and nursery run.  Then I could recover and not have to pick the kids up either with a possibly bloody mouth and two missing teeth (as I already have one missing).

Anyway, the dentist called today and said they’d have to rearrange my appointment as the dentist wasn’t in tomorrow.  I said this wasn’t ideal as I have four appointments in a row booked with the dentist so we’d have to rearrange all of them!  I also have the orthodontist booked this week and was hoping to have a new retainer made once this tooth was removed.  So it would push everything back and mess up the planned appointments as well as being an inconvenience as we’d sorted childcare already.

So they managed to squeeze me in at 2pm today which was great as I don’t have to delay anything with regards to my teeth, but also a royal pain as it was just before the school run!

The extraction itself was fine. They injected my gums twice and within seconds I could feel my lip tingling and like it was ballooning, even though it wasn’t!  I couldn’t feel a thing when he pulled the tooth out.  It was very quick and easy.

To cover the missing tooth he inserted something into my clear Essix retaine.  It wasn’t a false tooth, but some sort of composite that he built up and cured.  It didn’t look amazing, but fine as a temporary solution until my orthodontist appointment where I can get a new retainer made, or at least that was the plan as it didn’t even last that long...

I got home and it was so bloody in the retainer.  The blood was just covering all the teeth and filling up, so I took it out to rinse and clean it and oops!  The temporary tooth thing he just created came straight out and down the plug hole!  Nightmare!

You can imagine me wide mouthed and then going ‘no, no, no!’ at the plug hole!

This was now 2.45pm and I had to leave to get Bella! 

So I popped a tiny bit of cotton wool in the retainer and dashed out the door to get Bella, praying no one would try to speak to me at the school or on the journey.

Of course they did!  Typical!

I got to the playground and Bella’s classroom teaching assistant headed out ‘please don’t come to me, please don't come to me’…  but she did, trying to talk to me about something but all I wanted to do was grab Bella and get home asap to clean the retainer before going to get Reuben.

So I must have seemed very odd, but at this point my entire left side of my face from my lips up to my eye and half my nose was still so numb and frozen!  I couldn’t even lift my lip to smile properly and if I did she’d have seen the blood drenched cotton wool tooth!  So I mumbled something and got Bella as quickly as I could…

Then home to remove the cotton wool which I was also panicking would get stuck in the wound as the blood clot formed and dried.  And what if I got dirt on the cotton wool and the wound was now infected…

So I rushed Bella home so I could remove the cotton wool and clean the retainer.

Then off to the nursery to get Reuben with nothing in the gap and just blood dripping from the fresh wound and filling up my plastic retainer! 

Nice!

I knew they’d talk to me at Reuben’s nursery as they always fill me in on the day, but it’s usually just his keyworker so I’d just explain I’d had my tooth out very recently and all will be well.

But no, today all the staff were pretty much lined up when I walked in as the children were watching something, so I had all the staff’s eyes on me as one of them filled me in about Reuben’s day and I stood right in front of them all.  So embarrassing!  I must have had red teeth from all the blood!

So the lesson here is never ever have a visible tooth extracted right before a school run! 

I am totally embarrassed by my teeth now, but here's a tiny picture so you can see.  It obviosuly looks worse at the moment than my teeth at the very start of this journey!  But it's only temporary and I'll have a new retainer made with false teeth to cover these gaps until I get real false teeth later on.  I can't smile in this picture as it's right after I got home so my lips are super numb still and I can't lift them up!

I now have no lateral incisors!  Both are gone.  I only ever had one peg tooth for one in the first place and now that’s out I have two gaps either side of my front top teeth.  Read my whole journey and find lots of pictures in my Braces at 30 section.

Here's a better idea of the progress with the brace on the top and more of an idea of the top teeth when the gaps aren't there:

 

Next steps:

• Orthodontist appointment this week to remove bottom brace, file down teeth and fix permanent retainer.  Mould taken for bottom teeth for plastic Essix retainer to sleep in.  Will also get new retainer for top teeth made - possibly a metal one with two false teeth attached
• Go back to dentist this week to take moulds for a denture which will have two false teeth and allow me to eat in public until I have my permanent false teeth
• Wait 6-9 months for gum and bone to heal from peg tooth extraction.  Then have permanent false teeth fitted - either traditional bridge or Maryland style bridge.
• Then I'm done!

3 years in total.  Phew!