Wife's braces journey

I think we're going to do a couple of more videos between now and Carrie's next adjustment (October 12th). The first will be about her Braces Survival Kit, a cool little item I picked up from Dentakit right before she got her braces.

The other potential vid is a Q&A. This is an idea I got from a member here. I doubt we'll do it on YouTube Live, but if you have questions you want her/us to answer, post them here or send them to me in PM. If there's sufficient interest, we'll do the Q&A.
 
Driving to Rhode Island from Boston, Carrie reminded me that she's now been in braces six months. How time flies! She's a third of the way through with treatment already.
 
Carrie had her fourth adjustment yesterday. It was nothing earthshaking. They took an x-ray, went to a stronger archwire on the bottom, and left the top wire the same. She chose silver ligs and power chain. The way the ortho talked, it seemed like keeping the power chain was sort of optional, but he recommended keeping it and so she did. She still has the bite stoppers, but they're going to move some brackets at her next appointment, so she may finally be freed of those accursed things in late November. Still no elastics. I have to say that I REALLY like the look of the silver ligs/chain.

I'll be putting a video on YouTube today or tomorrow, so stand by!
 
Time is flying by! We had a nice Thanksgiving and then a long weekend in Las Vegas -- shopping, eating, drinking, dancing -- which was super fun.

Carrie has her next adjustment tomorrow afternoon. Her ortho plans to move some brackets, so it should be a longer appointment than usual. I'm still hoping she can lose the bite stoppers, which continue to somewhat frustrate her. She may also get elastics at this appointment. I'm going to have her stick with the silver-colored ligs (and power chain, if she continues with that). I'll make the usual video and put it on YouTube, of course!
 
Carrie had her fifth adjustment yesterday. No luck on getting rid of the hated bite stoppers, which she may have for the duration of her active treatment.

As far as braces changes:

- She is released from the "pain chain" (upper power chain).
- The ortho repositioned the brackets on her upper front incisors and her right lateral incisor. Presumably he will use the brackets on the front incisors as pivot points to bring down her lateral incisors and give her less of a "bunny rabbit" look to her front teeth.
- She got a stronger upper archwire (.16 x .22, I think). Her lower archwire remained the same. I think her ortho is being considerate and only causing aching on one jaw at a time!
- Same ligs as last time (silver) and I think they look chunkier when new. They do seem to sort of "settle in" as the weeks pass, though, and begin to look a little smaller.
- The ortho told her she'd get elastics to start midline correction at her next appointment (January 11). This means rubber bands for our next Vegas trip!

She's feeling a bit of pressure across her upper front teeth this morning, but nothing she can't easily handle.

I posted some pics from right after her appointment on Flickr:
http://anonym.to/?https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeinreallife/37822549455/in/dateposted/
http://anonym.to/?https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeinreallife/38654622436/in/photostream/
http://anonym.to/?https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeinreallife/26934472259/in/photostream/
http://anonym.to/?https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeinreallife/24837477408/in/photostream/
http://anonym.to/?https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeinreallife/37822548155/in/photostream/

I took quite a bit of video, which I'll try to edit today and put up on YouTube.
 
My pleasure. This little archive will be something I can enjoy for years after she gets her braces off!
 
Just a quick little update:

Carrie's only had some mild pressure and soreness since her last adjustment, and really just on the three brackets that were repositioned. The soreness has gone away now. However, her rearmost lower right bracket (with the buccal tube) came off on Saturday morning. Fortunately, the exposed archwire isn't stabbing her or anything, but she can't get into the ortho until Tuesday to have the bracket replaced. If the archwire does end up poking her today or tonight, I can just clip it with my trusty distal end cutter, as I've done with other poking wires before.

Me, when learning the bracket had come off: "Were you eating something hard, that you're not supposed to eat?"

Carrie: "Ramen noodles."

Me: "Oh. That's not supposed to happen."

Carrie: "No kidding."

She managed to recover the bracket. I put it in a snack bag to keep as a souvenir.  ;)
 
Carrie got the broken bracket replaced yesterday. She had to do a walk-in at the ortho practice, since no appointments were available and the orthodontist needed to be present to position the new bracket. She sat in the waiting room for about an hour before she was called back. The replacement was uneventful, however. She made a short video about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXGGD0YQtB4
 
Also of interest, I had a slight scheduling conflict with her next appointment. She offered to move the appointment back a week or so. The thing that jumped out in her text about it? "I can move it back to the next week. I don't mind moving things back to prolong treatment a bit."

Verrrrrrrrrrrrry interesting!
 
I think so. She's well past the point of the braces being uncomfortable, save a little soreness after adjustments, and cleaning is just an accepted routine now. All the awkward little conversations with family and friends are in the rearview mirror, as well, so now there's really nothing to the braces except how much it pleases me. She observed a couple of weeks ago that we have sex way more often than we used to, and that's true. Frequency has probably doubled, and since she's basically insatiable, she's really been enjoying it. That may be a lot of the motivation for her -- and maybe not even so much the sex itself, but simply being found so desirable.
 
We're off to Mexico for a few days, so if anyone is following the Flickr account, there won't be any updates until we return next week. I'll try to take lots of pics while we're south of the border, especially since this will in all likelihood be Carrie's only Christmas in braces.

To everyone who celebrates: Merry Christmas from Carrie and me!
 
Well, we had a great time in Mexico over Christmas, and fortunately there were no orthodontic incidents or issues! I only got a (very) few sightings of Mexican women in braces, though, so maybe that's actually more common among Latinas here in Arizona than in Mexico. We also had a fun time on NYE, and I put a bunch of pictures from that night on the Flickr album.

Carrie also did a video "review" of DentaKit's Braces Survival Kit over the weekend. I just put that up on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kYiosKbNGs

Her next adjustment is January 11th, and she's expecting elastics at that appointment. She's also begun talking seriously about ways to extend her treatment so she can wear braces longer. Anyone have ideas beyond postponing adjustments and poor elastic compliance?
 
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