About
I'm getting braces. I'm an adult. This is my story.Following
Working at a university everyone mistakes you for a student/student worker and calls you “cute”.
I’m not cute- i’m dangerous, can’t you see all this metal I’m sporting?!
In line for some soft serve frozen yogurt, yum, and what did I see? Not one, but two (!) adults with braces in front of me. It seems as though I have found the unofficial meeting place for adults with sore teeth.
J.P. Licks in Harvard Square…delicious and full of braces.
So it has been about 4 days since the braces went on and they still hurt like hell. I’ve woken up at least two times every night since they went on with searing mouth pain as the ibuprofen wore off. Due to this pain I haven’t been able to eat solid food. I am on easy mac, mashed sweet potatos, oatmeal and an occasional egg diet right now. This kind of sucks a lot.
As for public opinion - it’s been mixed (and for personal opinion “absolutely awful” is in the lead, with a close second being “completely horrendous”). Some people haven’t noticed/said anything about them at all, some noticed right away, and some it took a few minutes. The biggest give away is the pained look i’ve had on my face the last few days indicating that I am not happy and in pain.
The main concessus (of lies) is that:
Both of those things are only true if I do not open my mouth - then yes, they are not noticeable. The minute I open my mouth there they are, bright and shiny. My sister noticed them right away as did a couple of other people. So I thank all those trying to be considerate of my feelings but braces have not made me dumb and blind…i know what I look like.
Part of the problem with my perception of the braces is that I picture them to be along the lines of a looney tunes-esque metal contraption with spinning buzz saws and arms protruding from my face. (I know its not that bad but when there is chunky painful metal in your moth that is what it feels like).
I don’t think the pain is doing anything good in terms of my mood. I’ve been grumpy and on edge since Thursday and a little frenetic from lack of sleep and abundance of pain. Looking back to when I got my top braces on I wrote about the same type of pain but it seemed to be a lot more mild and the bulk of it went away within a week. I am drawing my own conclusion that the metal brackets hurt way more. I don’t know why but they do. In addition to the bottom brackets she also removed a handful of the top ones and repositioned them on the teeth, so instead of one set of teeth hurting it is my WHOLE mouth - ahh, maybe that is the difference, whole mouth vs. half mouth….interesting…awful….but interesting.
I do want to write a bit about the actualy appointment but I am still a bit scarred from it all and get a bit misty eyed when I talk about it…but here is the run down.
First off the apointment lasted TWO HOURS AND TWENTY MINUTES. Why? I have NO IDEA! I cried the whole time, so much so that my ears were being water logged by my own tears and my hair was soaked along the edges. About an hour and 15mins through the appointment she asked if I wanted to take a break and I never hopped so fast out of a chair in my life (she made me leave my purse for collateral). The taking off of brackets/glue hurt, kinda more than I would have liked (which means that braces-off day will be both a happy one and one to be feared…but we have till 2011 to worry about that). She couldn’t get my mouth dry enough for the glue to work because all my crying was causing an increase in saliva production. This lead to an additional assistant to come in, one to help the ortho and one whose sole job was to use the spit sucker thing on my face. And while we are on the topic of assistants, Will is the new ortho assistant (replacing Van) and he is lovely, i still cry, but he is very nice - doesn’t seem to be as confident as one might think but that might also be because I scare the bejesus out of him. Finally when we were nearing the end the jerk ortho had the nerve to ask me what color bands I wanted to put on!? Has she not seen me?! I snapped a face like no other, i’m sure, and told her whatever was least visible. She put on silver bands which blend in so well that it looks as though there aren’t any bands at all! So, I guess she did a good job there.*
So that’s where I am…my teeth hurt, I can’t eat to comfort myself and I’m feeling a bit miserable about life in general. I’m considering buying myself a smoothie on the way home…
*If there is ever an appointment where the next appointment is less than 4 weeks away I am considering having colored bands put on….but I don’t know if I can do that. I already look as though I am twelve and the braces and neon bands wouldn’t help. I could try to embrace it all (haha, puns…) but I don’t think i’m quite ready.
So, it has happened. I am fully braced. It is just as awful as I expected, in fact I am still recovering from the TWO HOUR and TWENTY MINUTES worth of a visit! I am off to have some frozen margarita’s and numb myself. I will give you lovely readers the full story as soon as I stop crying (yup, cried for all 2hrs 20 mins and then some).
*Note how CROOKED my bottom teeth/jaw look in the second pic! They were never that much off from each other so what does that mean? My jaw is moving! This is a good thing.
**EDIT: The first pic was taken in July of 08 (before surgery even), 2nd in March of 09, and the last on today at 5p(!)
This is SO me!
Not only am I super discouraged over adding MORE braces to my face but it seems like everyone of my fellow braces bloggers are getting theirs OFF. WTF.
Ugh.
Thursday is the day my bottom braces go on. Mentally I am prepared for the soreness and pain and general discomfort that will occur (can’t be any worse than when the top ones went on right?!). I am even prepared for the elastics, got my ibuprofen all ready.
The thing that is really freaking me out about the impending brace addition is the aesthetics of it all. Superficial or not I am deathly afraid of what I will look like. I am finally used to the braces that I have - as awful as they feel they are basically clear and unobtrusive. The bottom ones will be metal, more visible, and I will have elastics. Let’s take this one at a time shall we?
1. The Elastics: I am imagining them to be neon in color - and SUPER noticable. I 
picture not being able to open my mouth and when it does open it will be awkward. I imagine eating will be nearly impossible and won’t be able to eat in public again.
2. The Braces themselves: They will be metal and therefore much more noticable than the tooth colored brackets on the top. Everyone keeps saying that you won’t be able to notice because they are on the bottom but my mouth is ALWAYS open. I smile and talk A LOT, and I know for a fact, after much research (looking in the mirror and smiling and talking to myself in a non-crazy way), that my bottom teeth are in fact visible. Also, with shining metal protruding from them they will for sure be noticable.
3. When i got my top braces on my teeth felt too big for my face, I hate that feeling because it makes my tongue stick out (i have decided that my tongue is claustrophobic and hates to share my mouth space with the Evil Braces and therefore attempts to escape…what? Do you have a better reason for why my tongue likes to stick out of my face when it never did before?! I didn’t think so.)
4. Because only my top teeth are braced I can get away with eating a lot 
of stuff I am not allowed. It takes some maneuvering and careful chewing prowess but I have been known to have a Twix, crunchy granola bars and other forbidden foods. With the addition of the bottom braces I won’t have ANY leaway at all - there will be no forgiving teeth to make up for the bracket-infested ones.
So, flashback to last year and my anxiety was about 80% pain concern and 20% aesthetics now I am at about 95% aesthetics and 5% pain concern - I don’t think i can consider this improvement- if anything I am plateaued in a state of perpetual fear, the fear changes but the anxiety level stays the same. Great.
Also, I am getting anxiety over the inevitable unpanned horribleness that always seems to happen whenever I go see the ortho. It never fails, I go in and know what to expect and then she goes ahead and springs something completely out of left field on me.
I took the morning off from work on Thursday so I’d have some time to recover from the inevitable sobbing fit that I will throw but I don’t know if I will be emotionally ready to handle the comments when I do get into work. I don’t want to randomly burst into tears when one of my co-workers comments on them (even if it is a nice one).
On top of that I need to figure out how I am going to tell my current boy/love interest that my face is about to get ten times worse than it already is? I know he will most likely be “fine” with it - but there is always that fear that he (or really anyone I know) will make some inadvertent comment that will crush whatever teeth confidence I have left.
Before I go I must say a very happy (but insanely jealous!) CONGRATULATIONS to Wired Lady who finally got her braces off!!!!! Congrats lady -your blog has been a comfort to me and lots of other braced up peoples. Enjoy all of your brace-free days you have ahead of you!
P.S. The New York Times recently did an article on Braces and the Recession and it was a horribly offensive piece that basically stated that braces were superficial and unneccesary…I have a very heated response to this but have not had time to write the thoughtful and clear headed response I would like - so be on the look out for that coming soon!
I discovered a full bottle of Maple Syrup broke and spilled all over the inside of my refrigerator. A lovely sticky mass has settled at the bottom of the fridge in a perfect circle. Thanks to the refrigeration it is still sticky and not hardening. It is also emitting a sickeningly sweet odor. The one good thing about never food shopping/having no food in my fridge is that only the appliance is covered in syrup…lots and lots of syrup.
I am strongly considering calling it a loss and just moving out of my apartment since all cleaning attempts have been futile.
I’ve become fairly used to the orthodontic additions to my face in the past couple months. So much so that sometimes while getting ready I will completely forget they are there, turn the bathroom light off get ready to leave, only to remember (who knows why) that I should do a “braces check” before I leave (I am so paranoid of lipstick/gloss on my brackets, food, or some random horrible deformity that will magically appear.). 90% of the time when I look in the mirror I do not see the braces anymore, this does not include the millions of other times i am checking the mirror to make sure nothing is stuck or wrong or broken - just your run of the mill looking at my face I don’t notice them.
Then there are moments like this morning. Where Hitchcock couldn’t have written the 
scene better. I stepped out the shower, put my hair up in a towel, the mirrors still steamy and streaking from the condensation dripping down. I open the door walk into my kitchen, feed my cat (who is eerily quiet)…everything is quiet, and I walk back to the bathroom to begin my morning rituals when all of a sudden….I see them in the mirror, like the ax murder appearing suddenly behind me in my reflection. My braces. I jump back, literally shocked by my own reflection.
It is the strangest feeling to know what you look like, have looked like, for 20 some odd years, and to suddenly see your ACTUAL reflection. I’ve read that we only taste the first couple bites of our food and the rest of the meal is more of your brain piecing together what everything “should” taste like. I am coming to believe that our reflections are like this - we know what we should expect, what we’ve seen daily for, literally, ever. It’s probably why we don’t notice when we put on the little bit of weight until it’s a lot of weight - we aren’t able to see ourselves until something has drastically changed.
It’s an interesting topic, what do we actually “see” versus what we perceive to be the truth or reality. And, to try to curb the bias of this blog, and steal from the Parable of the Cave, one could argue that if I perceived my braces as a positive it would eventually become the reality (once again, the “fake it till you make it” strategy). To support this notion, I bring up the case of my coworker. My general strategy in braces life is to ignore them and hope you do too. Apparently it’s worked*. I was relaying a story from my blog and of course, mentioned my braces - she stopped me and said “You have braces?!” and then proceeded to recognize they were there. She has since told me that when she tries to picture me “without braces”, as she thought I had been, she couldn’t. In the Cave it is suggested that (in way oversimplified terms) once you see the “reality” you can never go back to your previous reality without being tainted. Now, my braces are about as aesthetically pleasing as they can be for brackets and bars (stupid invisalign…i curse thee for not working on me). It is relatively easy (now that my mouth has adapted to the extra occupants) to forget they are even there sometimes. But on those occasions that I remember and recognize that they are there it’s like they completely take over my face and thoughts. And of course I can’t just let it go, once I’ve made this “discovery” they stay on my mind all day - I am unable to forget the reality that exists in my mind. 
One could look at this and come to the conclusion that we create (or at least have the possibility of creating or changing) our own reality and therefore control how we view things - unfortunately I am not on that higher plane of existence yet where I can create a better teeth-reality for myself. And, unfortunately, I think the addition of the bottom braces will only serve to set me back a couple steps in the acceptance. I worry that by the time I am actually used to and accepting of it all they will be ready to come off! But I guess that is just the way things go, as annoying as that is.**
All of this is not to say that before the braces went on I was always 100% happy with the way I looked. I had my days, but they were mostly outnumbered by the I-Think-I-Look-Good days. ::Over dramatic warning:: With braces it doesn’t matter how good you look or what you do to “fix” and primp your self you’ll still have the braces. It’s frustrating.
After all that - I would like to end on a positive note, because I have been trying to be more optimistic in general, so here it goes: I had the most wonderful lunch today, good food and a pleasant walk in temperate weather. Also, this lol cat is great and may even inspire me to do some of my own art therapy for my “issues”.
NB: The unofficial corny soundtrack to this post is a toss up between Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” and Christina Aguilera’s “I am Beautiful”…..can’t decide which one accurately conveys the silliness and 13-year-old-sorrow I feel about my appearance sometimes. I fully recognize the over-dramatic superficial nature of my rants and accept that I am, occasionaly, a dork.
* Some people tend to notice them right away, some never, and some at really random semi-awkward moments, I like to pretend that people never notice them until I bring them up.
**I am clearly in a semi-academic mood today, thank you for indulging me for a moment - feel free to disagree with my interpretation
