11 months and counting

Time for a quick update - it's been almost 2 months since my last post and not really much progress unfortunately. I'm posting updated pics, where you can see that the bottom teeth are straightening out a little bit but the gap at the top really hasn't closed at all. I've been very frustrated and after discussing it with Dr. Cliff I'm going to get the bottom braces taken off and replaced with self-ligating outside braces. This is because I've broken yet another wire on the bottom, and I'm sick of my tongue being constantly cut up and sore. I think it will be less of a transition on the bottom (switch sore tongue for sore inner lip for awhile) and because hopefully I won't break the wires on top. I doubt that I will switch the uppers, even though he thinks it will reduce the total treatment time by about 3 months, just because I still don't want to deal with food stuck in my braces while at company lunches/dinners, and because the top ones don't bother me all that much - I just wish they would hurry up and straighten!!! We moved up to a new wire on the top so hopefully that will help things move along, although I'll feel better when we put the power threads back on to close the gap on the left. Here are the latest pics from July, unfortunately a couple of the pics have weird marks on them, it looks like there was hair on the camera lens or something but you get the idea: