Thursday, July 28, 2016

Pheealzabraces: Photo Gallery, weeks 1, 2, 3

July 11: The hot mess on the morning of the initial installation.
July 13: Two days after installation.

 July 17: Up close and personal.

July 25: Two weeks out, First rewire and banding. They added a second wire to the top brackets to help with spreading out the upper palate. The banding was initially what they called a box. A SINGLE elastic between the two upper eye teeth down to the two lower eye teeth and across. I was never able to re install the single elastic and actually ended up ripping the bracket off the upper left eye tooth trying Monday night. When I went back Tuesday afternoon to have it re attached, Dr. Hall went ahead and told me to do individual elastics from upper to lower eye tooth on either side.   
A much easier endeavor. The second wire should be coming out on the 8th, a decision on the elastics will depend on how much the teeth have moved.

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Pheealzabraces: Bracket Installation: 3 days out

I just finished browsing Lingual Braces (the trade name for the Incognito type) blogs to see if what I have been and continue to experience was in the norm, which evidently it is. I am referring to an unexpected and extremely intense "world of pain", in the immortal words of Walter Sobchak.

After about three and a half hours in the chair at Dr. Hall's office which encompassed the cleaning and prep of the teeth, the application of the brackets (two #12 & #21 (I think) came off with the trays and had to be re applied), and the wiring of the brackets I expected there to be a degree of aching pain in my jaws and teeth, since the basic work of the brackets and wires is to move teeth around in existing bone. What I didn't foresee was the difficulty in speaking immediately after the installation of the brackets and the development of painful ulcers on the underside of the side of my tongue near the back from rubbing against the brackets.

The speaking issues (which still haven't gone away) were evident immediately, and were not all that surprising. It's primarily in the from of a lisp, but there is also a good deal of extra salivation that goes on, resulting in having to pause fairly frequently when speaking to deal with (swallow) the aforementioned saliva. The tongue ulcers were a bit more surprising and definitely more annoying. Brace wax and Benzocaine based oral topicals have become my new best friend. There's nothing like having a band of sharp brackets with wire running between them on the inside of your teeth to remind you of how much your tongue moves around in your mouth when eating, coughing, clearing your throat, and hacking.

I bring up hacking because on top of the PAOO surgery and the braces I seem to have caught a dose of a flu of one sort or another. My chest was getting that lovely tightening sensation when I woke up Monday morning for the appointment at Dr. Hall's office and my throat had progressed to the classic hot scratchy state by that evening. The fever (such as it was) has since broken and I'm at the achy, tired, expectorating stage.

The blogs (none more recent than 2012, and the majority being from across the pond in GB) are a bit reassuring, speaking of the tongue pain and the speech issues and stating that, while the first week or two are a bit Hellish, things do settle down and one will get accustomed to the braces.  I've never been the most patient of people, but have learned the prudence of it in the past few years, so reading these entries has helped.

So has the Ninja. I think I'm drinking as many smoothies as I was immediately following the surgery. Soft food isn't too painful, but the (disgusting but inevitable) feeling of food of any type getting caught in the brackets is something that I tend to avoid right now. It's easily rectified with a thorough brushing immediately following the meal, but the smoothies and shakes make satisfying hunger a quicker (depending on the prep time for the smoothie) and cleaner (to an extent - I still brush afterwards) proposition.

Based on the blogs the eighth day is a milestone in terms of adjusting to the brackets and wire, so I'll plan on posting on this topic again then if there are no pressing developments before then. With what's going on in the world over the past ten days (not to discount the entirety of 2016) there may be additional posts on the general state of things once I'm over this lovely crud that is making its way slowly out of my system.

Saturday, July 2, 2016

Pheealzabraces: PAOO surgery, 5 days out

Those of you who have been following this saga via social media are aware of the latest step in this long and arduous process, the PAOO surgery. Dr. Brownfield performed it this past Monday (6/27) and I saw her again on Thursday (6/30) for a follow up. Everything is progressing well, although its been a little more intense than the Wisdom Tooth extractions.

In addition to the PAOO procedure, she also did some gum grafting to address the Gingival recession on the lower front as well as the removal of some compound filling put in by Dr. Hung to address distal fractures on my upper molars a couple years ago. All in all it added up to a long day in the chair, though I was, again, blissfully unaware of the proceedings save for another nose scratching episode. This time I was more insistent, and was actually obliged by Dr. Brownfield and her assistant until the spot was scratched.

Once again, faithful friend and responsible party Clint got me to the office and back home and settled in. Monday afternoon and evening are pretty spotty (there was some soccer viewing in there somewhere, and a lot of spit that looked suspiciously like pure blood), not surprising considering I probably had a good bit of sedative and painkiller still in my system. It wasn’t until Tuesday and really Wednesday that the full brunt of what had been done started to hit home.

Apparently I have harder bone than most folks, necessitating the shaving down of it in order for the PAOO cuts to be properly made. My face is going to ache for quite a while, I think. I finally broke down and took a Tylenol 3 (Tylenol w/Codeine) Tuesday night and turned onto my side at some point, which I was advised against due to the fact that not keeping my head elevated might result in one or both eyes blackening. Viola, instant left eye black. It’s not tender or anything, but it sure looks serious. Dr. Brownfield was duly impressed Thursday. I think the bigger pain in all this is the swelling that is stubborn in not going down (my nose feels like it’s stuffed up all the time, but blowing it is an exercise in pain (and futility, most of the time)) and the stitches all over my mouth, especially the ones on the outside of my gums poking into the inside of my lips.

The other tough part about the recovery this go round is how much longer it’s going to take and the necessity for me to take it easy for an extended period of time. I’m lucky I was able to take the entire week off, and glad that I did so. Still, I went out to run errands on the past few days and to band practice last night, which plumb wore me out. It’s frustrating, because the recovery from the extractions was relatively short and easy. I’m not the most patient person in the world, and laying around the house doesn’t feel right, even when I know it’s the best thing for me.

The ‘no solid food for two weeks’ thing is also proving to be interesting, mainly in the sense that it has all but reduced my meat consumption to zero. I’m learning quickly about what I like and don’t like in the smoothie world.

So the next week or so will be an exercise in patience and self control. The stitches come out on Friday (7/8) and the braces go on on the following Monday (7/11) Then the long road to the eventuality that will be the implants to replace the dead teeth that started all this will be underway.