I got a tooth!

I've been late putting out this post, but on Monday I got a tooth to fill in my gap, YEA!

I was in the chair for about an hour, but it was worth it. The way the tooth is attached is that it is on the wire for the braces. As such, Dr. F put in a really think wire - think steel rod. Then Dr. F used some thin wire to tie it in too. I have to say it seems really sturdy in there. But the girl had a lot of trouble putting the wire in, it was a miscommunication between Dr. F and her - she was trying to feed the wire to my back teeth, but the wire only had to go to the tooth one in from the back. Also of note, Dr. F made the tooth a touch shorter then the ones next to it, so that it wouldn't be taking any pressure from biting on it.

I was in quite a bit of pain when Dr. F was putting the tooth on the wire. It's next to my middle tooth that hurts, so a new thick wire combined with all that movement from tying on the tooth, it was bad. It was the kind of pain that your eye want to cry, the pain doesn't make you cry, but it's so close to the tear ducts that you can't control it. I didn't actually cry, but I felt close to it. But in the next chair was a young girl who I think was crying and in quite a bit of pain. I must admit that I figured me crying wouldn't help her and I had to be tough and that gave me a little extra incentive to keep the tears in my eyes.

But I have to say, the tooth looks great! The picture was a self portrait with my iphone so it's not the best, but I think it gets the point across. I'm a smily happy go lucky kind of person, I now find myself, when I'm smiling, to be totally conscious of the fact that I now have a teeth (and hence not flashing my toothless smile) and it feels much better, I'm less shy about it. It's a good thing.

Pandoras Box

My bite adjustment was Pandora's Box...

Well my tooth slowly started to bother me more and more, I was convinced I needed a root canal.

I finally got to LF on Tuesday with my fingers crossed and a couple people praying for me.

LF said my gums were inflamed, she irrigated it and gave me a prescription mouth wash, who knew they made that. The change in the contour of the tooth has made a gap under the bracket on the neighboring tooth which is allowing stuff in and then inflaming the tooth. I will need to get the bracket fixed, lucky me!

My tooth is feeling better sometimes, and is still irritated at other times, but it sounds like this is my solution, it can't be worse then a root canal.

My teeth still hurt

Late last week my teeth started to bother me again, on the lower right. I'm guessing that some tooth must have moved in such a way that it allowed other teeth to move and now they're moving. My teeth are feeling a bit better now, though are still sensitive. Does the pain ever stop???

To top it all off the upper left front tooth is bothering me and has been pretty much the whole time I've had braces. Something has to happen with this tooth, at this point I don't really even care what happens to it as long as it makes it feel better.

I saw LF last week when my cap fell off, the same cap the fell off the day I got braces. This time I ate the cap with my dinner. She used permanent cement this time, keep your fingers crossed. LF also trimmed the wire on my upper left side that was irritating the inside of my mouth. I've been eating less wax since then.

Taking the first step

I went to the dentist today to have the root canal tooth finished. Unfortunately I have recently noticed a very slight pain in the tooth, not enough to run and get the tooth looked at (I'm really sick of dealing with this tooth), but enough to make it a consideration when choosing what to do with the tooth. LF decided to do a provisional crown on the tooth and see how it goes, she felt it might even be a better option for the tooth since I'm getting brace next month.

The other thing was that since this tooth would take much less time she decided to do the two tooth cap/bridge today instead of tomorrow. With that LF took a drill to my tooth. My first thought was - there goes a couple grand in dental work. Then I had a moment of almost having an anxiety attack, that panic about taking that first step on a long road... It lasted about a minute and then I just sat there as the bridge was drilled away. I got some good news - the two teeth are in good shape, which was very much a concern. LF said that the mobility in the bridge wasn't from the teeth. She did find that one tooth had a touch of mobility in it, but she thought that would go away now that the teeth are separated.

So how does it look and feel? The tooth next to the middle teeth looks almost exactly the same, though is irritating my gum a bit tonight. The other tooth you can now tell is set back in the mouth a little bit and looks a little smaller, though it doesn't look "bad." That tooth is irritating my tongue and the gum in the front is sensitive, I suspect that part of the gum there had been protected by the old bridge and is now exposed to my mouth for the first time in years.

Moving things up.

I spoke to Dr. F on Friday and it was an eye opening phone call. He didn't have too much to offer in the way of health insurance, though seemed to mention HIP a lot. He did say though that we have to get started with things much sooner then I thought. I had been given the impression that the palate expander would be done early during this whole thing. However, Dr. F needs about 6 months to get my teeth in order before doing the palate expander. I was blown away! He said if I want to do the palate expander in mid February then I need to start with the braces in August. August is right around the corner! This is going to require a shift in thinking and a lot of work I hadn't planned on just yet.

Before he can do the braces though I need to have the cap/bridge replaced, a slight problem since LF is going to be away for most of July. I did manage to get an appointment with her for the end of July, which is good. I also need to finish the work on the tooth that just got the root canal, which is scheduled for the end of July too. I have another tooth that I know will eventually need to be crowned. It now has a little chip in it, I need to find out if this tooth is still sturdy enough to hold up for the braces or if it needs to be crowned before.

My other issue that this is screwing up is that I was planning on taking a little trip to Scotland in September, as a pre-braces trip for myself. I had figured once I got the braces I would scale down my travel to long weekends in the US, so this was to be my last big trip for a while. I'm now considering some other stuff, but money will definitely be an issue once I start everything.