Metal Mouth

I'm getting braces tomorrow. Why now? Well, the beginning is a good place to start.

I love my new dentist, who appears to be much more competent and actually has bedside manner-unlike my previous dentist, who shall remain nameless. During my new patient consult he told me to bite down in the typical exam manner. To which I responded, "I am biting down." And he counters with, "No, bite down on your back teeth." To which I responded that I thought I was. And, after a few minutes of him trying to coax me to bite using my molars we discovered that I thought I was biting down but in essence I wasn't. My molars don't touch. (I'd post pictures but they'd probably gross most of ya'll out.)

A "normal" person's bite aligns with the points of teeth locking in a grid rather than tip-to-tip. My front teeth hit tip to tip and my back teeth don't touch. As a result, my new, wise dentist tells me that I'm wearing down my tooth enamel as I am only chewing with the front part of my mouth and, that's a front part that doesn't align properly either. Great.....

So, he recommends I see an orthodontist. And, here I am, going to be a metal mouth in just over twelve hours. I'm opting for the clear top brackets in spite of the options for Invisalign and iBraces. I really don't want to have to remove the Invisalign when I eat in public. Kinda yuck. And, iBraces (which go behind the teeth) were significantly more expensive, and when you're unexpectedly spending over $3000 on mouth metal, you really don't want to spend any more than necessary.

I'm enjoying my "last supper" of popcorn and wishing I had a whole bag of caramels to consume. Perhaps I'll grab some to eat on my way to the orthodontist in the morning. I'm sure it will be worth it in two years when they come off and when I'm fifty and I still have teeth!!!