A while ago I blogged our first few days of Big wearing her braces. I think a few ppl found it useful, as it is or was looming in their future, so I thougt it was probably time I dropped a quick update in.
She’s now been wearing braces since February. One of the main reasons she was given them was that there wasn’t room for one of her canine teeth to come through at all – the tooth could be seen on an xray, but there was no gap below it for it to come through. The orthodontist told us when we started that his aim was to make room and bring the tooth into line, but that she might still have to have extractions.
9 months on, the canine tooth is through and this week was added to the braces itself. That meant putting the bracket on, and the train track wire having a bend in it to go up to the tooth which was high above the others. I wish I’d taken pictures – that was yesterday, and there is already obvious movement. Which also explains the amount of pain she’s been in since the appt – calpol melts are our friends 🙁
So it’s been soft food for the past couple of days, no bassoon practice, a fair few bouts of tears and lots of distraction therapy. But less than a year into the process and we can see now what the end result might be, and mostly Big agrees that it’s worthwhile.
Hints and tips if your child is facing any of this? Dental wax. Mouthwash – but as well as checking that it’s alcohol free, look out for warnings that it shouldn’t go near plastic! Get them to take their time over the brushing – if a long session is too painful, it’s better to do little and often – after every meal/ snack. And stay away from sticky foods. Good recipes include pasta and bolognese, veg stew (meat can require too much chewing), jacket potatoes (easy to mush up with a fork with some butter and cheese). Soup, obviously, but that’s not always quite so filling.
Oh, and the three monthly dental appts for fluoride polish are just a pain. But apparently they were delivering children with beautiful straight rotting teeth, so now it’s NICE guidelines to have fluoride polish applied every three months.
So there you go. Our life with braces, so far.
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