Time sure flies when you’re having fun. It flies when you’re slowly being tortured with a mouth full of assorted metal and elastic as well. It’s been a year since the braces were put on, which is pretty unbelievable in the scheme of things. There is a part of me that barely remembers what it was like to not have them, to not have my mouth irritated or have to pop off to the bathroom to pry bits of my meal out of my brackets on a routine basis. However, the change they’ve made in that year is also pretty astounding. My overbite is nearly gone, the number of headaches I get has been cut down dramatically, and my smile, once crooked and something I hated, is nearly straight and gleaming. I still dislike it, though; odd that.

The pain, however, is far from over. To celebrate my one year in braces my orthodontist sent me home with a mouth full of new experiences. On my bottom arch I got my finishing wire, which sounds exciting except it just means it’s the last wire I’ll get, but that it’ll still be on for a while. I also got about 5 vastly irritating metal lig ties and yet another power chain, um yay? On the top arch it was just another wire, and the news that while I’m making lots of progress it’ll probably still be a few more wires until we even start talking finishing wires.

The biggest change, though, are the elastics. If you’ve never experienced elastics they’re these teeny tiny rubber bands that also do a reasonable imitation of torture devices. With my lingual braces on the top and ceramic on the bottom arrangement the bands run from the inside to the outside, which is even more complex than it sounds, but I’m getting the hang of it. You essentially have to blindly get the band to hook onto just the right tooth in the back and then stretch it until you can get it to snap onto the hook for the corresponding tooth in the front. And those stay on 24/7, they can be taken off to eat, though my ortho was sure to stress that not everyone feels the need to do so.

The way they stretch from behind the teeth on the top to the front on the bottom do an amazing facsimile of a dull knife slowly trying to slice into my tongue and lower lip. Oh and that’s not even touching on the jaw and tooth pain that has led to some, admittedly amazing, changes to my bite already. I actually have a bite, I didn’t last week. It is pretty amazing, and quite possibly worth the discomfort.

With lingual braces I was told that if the discomfort is too much for the tongue they can bond teeny clear little buttons to the front of your teeth for the elastics. We’ll see if that’s necessary. If they keep up the way they’re going I’m going to end up with a divided tongue, and while I think body art is cool that is never something that has appealed.

Wow am I lax. Good intentions leading to a blase attitude, truly. It’s probably because for a while there my braces were just pieces of metal attached to my teeth. Nothing was happening, nothing worth writing about. My orthodontist says that’s common, you get dramatic changes at first and then things slow and are more subtle. So if that happens to you, don’t sweat it.

Does it stay that way forever? Well obviously I’m only 9 months into this journey so I couldn’t answer the forever question, but it doesn’t even stay that way for long. I finally got a bracket on that one last tooth and then came the placid period. Then…enter the power chains. They’re like your normal ligs, but on 1 attached chain spanning multiple teeth and they put extra pressure on those teeth so your orthodontist can manipulate the teeth the way they want.

During the adjustment before last I received two of the things on my top arch. Changes were dramatic and nearly overnight. 1 remaining crooked tooth rotated and straightened within days. The pain…well lots of change brings lots of pain. It’s a good diet tool! Cleaning? That’s where things get interesting. I’ve always describing flossing with lingual braces as trying to sew in a straight line with your eyes closed and having power chains makes it more like trying to sew through numerous layers of fabric and needing to find just the right hole–all with your eyes closed. It’s a challenge. I’ve jabbed my gums with more floss and interproximital brushes in the last 7 weeks than I ever want to think about.

During my last adjustment they switched things up a bit, just 1 powerchain on the top and 2 on the bottom. You can’t even see the ones on the bottom, the clear chain is quite clear; I had to do some poking about to even figure out where they were. I’ll have to see how well it holds up to staining though!

It’s been less than 24 hours and my one last stubborn tooth on the top is almost fully rotated and on the bottom a gap between two teeth is nearly closed. They really do produce changes fast, but with the pain to accompany them. If your ortho says they’re putting on powerchains, I highly recommend taking some IBU right away and just keeping it up for a couple days. These suckers hurt more than when I initially got my braces on.

6 weeks until my next adjustment, I can’t wait now. The words “finishing wire” were uttered. It doesn’t mean I’m done ( I guess I could be in that wire for a good long time), it just means the 18 to 24 month sentence treatment period I was given might actually fall towards the lower end rather then going over. And here I was cautioning myself to expect a long term, not a short one!

What a weird way of describing having braces put on, install, as though I’m a piece of machinery going in for an upgrade. Well, odd terminology or not, two weeks ago I had braces installed and I think I’m finally ready to share something about the experience. It can be summarized in two words, two words that will forever haunt my dreams, two words that send chills down my spine just contemplating typing, two words that probably won’t mean anything to most people, but trust me, they should. Those two words–tooth dust.

The application of the braces wasn’t painful. It was uncomfortable–you’re basically sitting there for a couple of hours with an awkward cheek spreader keeping your mouth open, with a suction device attached to your tongue keeping your mouth as dry as possible, fun! It isn’t a recipe for comfort, but it also isn’t a recipe for misery. However, because I was having lingual braces applied to the top arch I got a little something extra, a little something beyond the regular installation process.

I got to have my teeth micro-etched, to rough up the surface and make them suitable for slapping on those fancy golden brackets. This involved about 20 minutes of them sandblasting my teeth, sending the aforementioned tooth dust everywhere. I do mean everywhere. Once they were done I was white as a ghost because my face was covered in dust. I was choking from breathing it in, my shirt was covered, my hair was coated in teeny tiny particles of my teeth. Just the concept is horrifying. The teeth didn’t feel noticeably different, they weren’t smaller, they weren’t even really rougher. Where did all that dust come from?

It took hours of scrubbing before I felt like it was out of my hair; I may still need to burn those clothes. If you’ve ever sanded anything that produces super fine particles you might know what I’m talking about, now imagine that being…your teeth. The horror! If they’d have warned me about the dust I might have opted against the lingual braces. The speech problems, bah! A little extra poking to my tongue, who cares? Being covered in tooth dust while having them put on, dream haunting.