I got braces last week.
I should mention that I had them once before, some 40+ years ago as I was entering 5th grade. In that episode, we're talking about a mouthful of metal: the bands that got clamped on to each tooth with wires poking and breaking (!) and rubber bands configured in the most bizarre ways (and also breaking).
Fortunately, I was spared the torture that is headgear.
Unfortunately, my orthodontist was the Marquis de Sade.
NO chair-side manner at all and he NEVER smiled. He seemed to delight in just how uncomfortable he could make a 10-year-old: when he took those plier-like devices and went in to pull and tighten the wires, honest-to-God he pulled me right out of the chair at times! If I made even the slightest peep, he had a sneer and a nasty comment handy.
It didn't help that his office smelled of old plastic, the walls were a dirty brown color, and the room where all of the work was done had one tiny window up high on the wall, and the room was so small, you had to turn sideways to get to the chair. The chair of torture. All that was missing were clamps for wrists and ankles.
It also didn't help that there was another orthodontist across town who was ALL the rage with other kids I knew who had braces (I was stuck with Chuckles for insurance reasons). I envied those kids who got to go to the "cool" office where they had the latest rock music piped in and bright colors in the waiting room and inner office. True, they had the same mouthful of metal that I did, but they didn't seem to dread their regular appointments as I did.
Finally, two years later, I was happily anticipating getting the metal monstrosity out of my mouth, and right before 7th grade started!
Then my orthodontist's mother died the day before I was to go in.
I was in shock when my parents told me. I cried to the point I was hiccupping. I repeated "it's not fair!" a million times. I know, I know: I was hardly a compassionate 12-year-old at that point. In my defense, I'd been counting on not ever having to see the Doctor of Doom again as much as getting rid of the braces themselves.
Eventually, he returned from mourning his mother, my appointment was rescheduled, and the offending metal removed (not before school pictures, however; I think that was cosmic punishment for not being more empathetic with his loss).
However, the fact that Dr. Bizarro didn't believe much in follow up of any kind is the reason I'm back in braces now: because I didn't have any kind of permanent retainer system, not even a night-time retainer, my teeth have slowly shifted out of alignment over time. There are spaces between teeth that bother me, although T and Z both tell me again and again that they aren't noticeable (they're just being nice; the mirror tells me otherwise). The turning point came when one of my bottom teeth that had moved, ever so slightly, managed to sheer off the back enamel from it's neighbor above. My dentist was able to put on some bonding and smooth it down, but told me we'd more than likely be doing it again in a year or so unless I considered orthodontics.
So, only a month after my teenager finished with the orthodontist, I'm in the chair now. I can happily report, however, that Dr. K is a wonderful person, and his staff is top-notch and caring. The office has a giant fish tank (very soothing), and is decorated with various sports teams' memorabilia (Dr. K is an avid fan of all sports Chicago-style). Bright and airy, with lots of windows, it does not feel at all like the drab, dark, cramped office I remember from my previous encounter with an orthodontist.
In my consult with our (now) family orthodontist, he determined I had the option of invisalign. Well, having done the whole metal-mouth thing before, I jumped at the idea of these little clear trays. I know that metal braces have come a long way from the series of painful bands and wires, but I just couldn't bring myself to even really consider them.
So I'm getting used to thin, plastic tooth trays on my teeth. They are tight -- which means they're doing what they're supposed to. As the two weeks go on, they will feel less and less tight as my teeth slowly reposition themselves. Because my teeth are not horrible (really just a few offenders like the tooth that beats up its neighbors), I could be finished in as little as 9 months -- but if I'm not responsible, I'm looking at a year and a half at least.
I'm sure Z will be happy to check to be sure I'm wearing my braces as payback for all the times I'd ask him "are your braces in?" I hope I can do as well as he did over the long haul... and get my smile back.