M&M gets braces (again)

Thursday, July 26, 2012

We originally had planned on M&M getting braces at the first of the year, but my cancer treatments ended up pushing it back several months.  We finally made it into the orthodontist to talk about a treatment plan and we set a date to have her get them on on July 26th.  We thought that it would be best to get them on before school started and marching band was in full swing so that she would have a little bit of time to adjust to them.  If you recall, M&M had braces several years ago on just a couple of her front teeth to pull them into line while she had an expander in her mouth to make room for her teeth.  She is not terribly excited about having them but she is in good company because so many of her friends either currently have them or did have them somewhat recently.  Right now she is gung-ho about keeping them clean and says that she will be diligent about wearing her rubber bands when she starts that so she can get them off as soon as possible.  We'll see if that sticks once the novelty of having them has worn off.

Braces update

A couple of weeks before school ended, Luke got his braces off! He had them on for a little over a year and a half - and started even before that with an expander. He was very excited to get them off and then he got a retainer the following week which he has to wear all the time - except for when he is eating - until the end of summer. I completely forgot to take a picture of his teeth without the braces until I was taking pictures of DH after his implant procedure. So here he is - with some very big, but straight top teeth. Luke will probably need full braces once all of his permanent teeth come in, but at least for now he can have a break from them.

Scary

This is probably the scariest thing from our Halloween week:

I was trying to get a picture of Luke's braces that he got a couple of weeks ago and this is one of the pictures that I took. He was trying to keep his mouth open wide while at the same time trying not to close his eyes when the camera flashed. I just couldn't quit laughing when I saw this picture.

**Warning - Don't look at it for too long, it might give you nightmares!

Feel the pain...

Yesterday Luke had his expander removed, adjusted and then put back in his mouth so he was a little sore when dinnertime came around. We were discussing Luke's sore mouth and DH asked the kids if we should have braces put on my teeth (he likes to bring this up periodically because my teeth are a little crooked and I have never had braces). A couple of the kids said "no", a couple said "yes", but Luke's answer was the best. He said, "Yeah! Then she can feel the pain of soreness."

Say what?? We all got a big kick out of that for the rest of dinnertime.

Poor Luke!

Luke is having a rough go of things yesterday and today. We went to the orthodontist yesterday and he had an expander put in. He had a hard time falling asleep last night because his mouth was hurting him and then today he has been having a hard time eating. He kept getting food caught on the wires at lunchtime and he ended up gagging and throwing up a couple of times. Hopefully he will adjust quickly and be back to normal in the next day or two.

Totally spaced it...

I've been running around all morning & afternoon trying to get the house back in order after our busy weekend when I came downstairs and saw M&M looking at the calendar on the fridge. She was about to ask me something when I looked at the clock and realized that we were a half hour late for my son's orthodontist appointment! I've had that appointment on the calendar for several weeks and I can't believe that I totally spaced it - usually I'm really good at remembering things like that! Baby K has been so good today and I've been able to get a lot done around the house and I just completely forgot about the appointment. I yelled downstairs for the kids to get their shoes on and get in the car while I called the orthodontist's office to see if we should still come. After the receptionist talked to the orthodontist she said that they're just too booked today to be able to squeeze him in, but they do have an opening tomorrow morning. So I rescheduled for tomorrow morning. That should work better for me anyways. I like to take care of any errands, including appointments, in the morning if at all possible. Unfortunately this is the second time that we've had to reschedule this consultation. I made an appointment 2 months ahead of time for a couple of weeks ago and when they called to confirm, the time was different than what I had written down on my calendar - right in the middle of the school day during the last week of school. So I called and rescheduled for today. Oh, well. The reason Luke has this appointment is because he has some huge teeth coming in and no room in his mouth for a couple of teeth that he just lost. My prediction is that he will have to go through the whole expander/braces routine that M&M did already.

No more expander!

On Thursday, I got a call from M&M at school telling me that her expander had come off her back tooth. (I could tell she had been crying - she gets emotional easily about some things...) So after school I took her to see the orthodontist and he found that the wire had broken off the metal clip around her back tooth, so he decided to remove it altogether! M&M was quite happy. The orthodontist took some measurements of her mouth and he'll measure again in 2 week when we go in to see if her mouth has started shrinking again. Provided things look good at the next visit, I think she will be fitted for a retainer and be finished with the expander for good!

M&M gets braces

Tuesday, October 17

The fun is just beginning!!
M&M got braces last Tuesday on her front two teeth. She has had an expander in her mouth for the last couple of months to try and make room up top for her permanent teeth to come in. She lost the two teeth on either side of her front teeth almost a year ago now and the permanent ones never came in. The dentist took some x-rays and you could tell that they were stuck up in her gums with no room to come down. Now that she has had the expander in her mouth, her teeth are finally coming in. In the next couple of months the orthodontist will take out her expander and give her a retainer to wear. Then once all of her permanent teeth come in, she'll probably need full braces (especially on her bottom teeth)...