1st Month Experience with Braces

Friday, April 18, 2014
The changes I have made this 1st month from having braces:

Eating

Well I definitely eat totally different now. Pretty much everything I eat I use a fork and knife to cut up my food into small pieces before eating. This also includes sandwiches & hamburgers. I stay away from all the "do not eat" foods. Anything that is too hard or too sticky I don't even attempt. On the plus side.........I lost weight!!! :) Because of cutting everything I eat up and eating/chewing slower, I get full faster. Plus a lot of my favorite "junk foods" are now too hard or too sticky to eat and are on the forbidden food list. Also, having my extractions done and mouth too sore to eat a lot, played a big part. But hey no complaints, because I went down a size and now wear size 5 which I havent worn since my 20's ;-). My husband calls it the braces diet! lol

Brushing & Flossing

Brushing my teeth is completely different. I went from spending maybe 2-3 minutes brushing my teeth to now spending 10-15 minutes. I have a routine down. First I brush the bottoms for 2 minutes, then the tops for 2-3 minutes focusing on all sides of the brackets, teeth and gums. I use an Oral B electric toothbrush. I also make sure I brush the roof of my mouth and tongue. I then use the small spiral brush to go under each wire and brush parts of my teeth there, as well as around each bracket. Then I floss between every tooth which is tricky for the ones with the brackets and wire. I have threaders that help get the floss under the wires and make it easier to floss. Then I use plackers to scrap between my teeth to make sure I got all the plaque off and food particles. Then I use a water pik and lastly I rinse with mouth wash. I do this in the morning and at night. After snacks or meals during the day, I just brush or rinse my mouth out really good to make sure I don't have any food on my brackets or wires.

My teeth/braces cleaning essentials ;)

Sleeping

Sleeping with braces on so far only is disturbed when my teeth are feeling sore due to movements. I have noticed I wake up during the night feeling like I am clenching my teeth. Sometimes it suddenly wakes me up with a jolt of pain but goes away very fast. Like I was pressing my bottom teeth hard against the back of my top teeth. Weird...

Movement of teeth

Not too big of a difference so far. Although I can now see that my top front tooth, that was turned almost sideways, has straightened out some. It still has a ways to go. I can feel soreness when there is movement and I even see a small space between the top of my two front teeth. It's weird, one day when I floss my teeth will be really tight and then another day the floss glides right through. Then back to being tight again in some places. But at least it shows me they are actually moving even if I dont see much of a difference right away.

Peoples reactions of me having braces

Ive had a lot of support from family and friends when they found out I got braces. I don't feel like I get strange looks from anyone that I don't know, so I am not embarrassed at all. When people at work first noticed I got braces, they were all positive reactions. If anything, having them on has helped build my confidence more to smile without hiding my teeth. Even though they aren't straight yet and have a lot more work to go, I feel better about myself with them on.