month 7 with harmony lingual braces

just a quick update - after adding a second "stop" and some serious movement in the past few weeks my super crooked front canine is FINALLY not overlapping my front tooth and we can do my root canal. Once we do the root canal, we can put on the rest of my brackets and my hope is that then I'll really start to see my teeth straightening out :) We haven't been able to take pictures for the last couple visits but my next appointment is in a week and hopefully I'll get updated pics then so you can see the changes.

Harmony Linguals after 6 months

I just wanted to give a quick update - I had an appointment last week and asked Dr. Cliff to get pretty aggressive as I wasn't seeing the results I wanted, so he put in a new "stop" to help move the super crooked front tooth, and at the same time a power chain from my very front tooth to the back on the other side to keep the teeth from moving the wrong way and creating gaps. They also did a new power thread on the bottom left to close that gap. It definitely worked as I already see a lot of movement in the front, and it seems as though the gaps on the left have closed more. I have another appointment this week (only 2 weeks apart) so that we can check the progress and tighten things as needed so I'll try to update after that.

Updated pics

I don't have a lot to update yet, but I thought I'd post the latest pics from my December appointment. My next adjustment is in a couple weeks so I'll post again after that :) If you compare these to the pics I posted from August you should see that my front teeth are straighter, my bottom teeth have lined up, and how much the gaps on the left (right when you look at the pics) have closed. Hopefully my next set of pics will show how much the crooked front canine has improved!

Wow, 4 months with my Harmony Braces already!

My apologies for the delay in posts, November seemed to just disappear before I knew it! And now here we are just a few days from Christmas. My teeth have moved quite a bit since my last post, especially in the past 2 weeks since my last appointment. Dr. Cliff added some "stops" (I think that's what he called them) to help my super-crooked front tooth move. I will be honest, that week was pretty painful - right up there with the first week I had my braces. I went back to soft foods for a few days and had to take quite a few ibuprofen lol. BUT the good (great) news is that it worked!!! In just a week that tooth moved so much that two people as soon as they saw me went "oh my gosh your teeth are so much straighter!". So all the pain was definitely worth it, because that is my most hated feature and I desperately want it fixed. I haven't been very good with using my AcceleDent lately, because I was sick for 2 weeks and then had that adjustment which left me not wanting to put anything in my mouth haha. Although Dr. Cliff suggested in future that might actually help when I'm sore, so I will give it a try. But I'm going to get back at it because I really do think it's working and I notice a difference from not using it. I will be posting the pics they took Wed so you can see the difference, and I'll also be putting together a time-lapse video on my YouTube page soon: http://www.youtube.com/user/HarmonyLingualBraces. My next appointment is mid-Jan so y'all have a great holiday and happy New Year, and I'll talk to you again in 2013!!!

getting used to my Harmony Lingual braces

It's been a couple weeks since my last post so I thought I'd do a quick update - not much exciting or new happening really, my teeth are still moving slowly but surely and don't hurt, even after getting new power threads today so that's good. Also Dr. Cliff was pleased that my upper extraction gap on the left had closed enough that we needed to file down the pontics (fake tooth) to make more room. I actually opted to have them both removed as I find them irritating with food getting stuck etc. and I don't have any more weddings so I'm not too concerned about it. I can see how much the lower left has closed too which is awesome, especially since that's the one that's been missing for over 10 years (we didn't have to remove it). For some reason one of my front teeth has been insanely sensitive lately - to cold, or even room temperature drinks, and even just the air at times. That sucks but I've been using prescription strength fluoride toothpaste which has been helping. It's the same one that used to do this in the past so not really to do with the braces but still extremely irritating. Still using my AcceleDent and it still seems to be working so all in all good progress and I'll keep you posted.

Links

it occurred to me that I should probably post a link to learn more about Harmony Lingual self-ligating braces. Check out Alexander & Alexander in Coppell and Dallas at www.alexanderortho.com or go to www.myharmonysmile.com My next appointment is next week so I'll update after that :)

New power threads on my Harmony braces

Thought I'd do a quick update - I had another appointment with Dr. Cliff at Alexander & Alexander Orthodontics yesterday. I'd been having problems on the right side, with something hurting my tongue and causing a blister. It was driving me crazy because I couldn't figure out which bracket it was. Turns out I had a broken wire! We ended up taking out the broken piece, because it was at the back on the right and we're working on the left right now so it won't affect the treatment and when we put the next wire in it will be fixed. I also had a wire poking me at the back on top and they bent it back so it doesn't bother me anymore. My teeth have definitely been moving, we had to put in a new set of power threads on the left because the first ones were loose, so that means the gaps are closing which is awesome! Negative side is my teeth were REALLY sore yesterday, and still a bit tender today (although way better). So I can tell the threads are doing their job lol. Getting the new threads (they're like elastics) is kind of irritating at first, just because my tongue gets stuck in them, but since it only lasts a day or two I can live with it. That's about it for now, will keep updating as things change :)