Friday, November 28, 2008

Spacers Are In!


I went into Dr. A's office yesterday to get spacers (8 to be exact) put in between my back teeth. My teeth are SO tight, the girl had a hell of a time getting them in. She ended up calling in back-up help for one of the elastics, and the back-up help ended up jimmying a wire spacer because the elastic spacer would.not.go.in. There was some blood shed (I have very sensitive gums), and it took them twice as long as it was supposed to. Supposed to be done in 10 minutes, but it took 20. Not fun, but not horrendous either. The good thing, is that come Monday when I get my braces on, it will be much easier due to the space the spacers will have created for the ligatures to go around my back teeth.

A couple of hours after the spacers were put in, they were really driving me crazy. A little sore, but overall just really annoying. Ya know when you have a chunk of something stuck in your teeth, and if you can't get it out right away, it drives you nuts? Well imagine that x 8. The elastics stick up a bit, so that when I bite down, the top and bottom elastics meet in a sponging elasticy way. Makes me want to grind my teeth. My teeth are tender today. I could really use a gum massage!

Liquid Advil is my best friend, and I'm betting it will continue to be for the next, oh, 2 years!

3 comments:

Dot O said...

Ah, but it will be worth all of the pain!!! Just made the last payment of the $4100 for my son's braces two weeks ago. Now THAT'S painful!! LOL.

I'm dealing with TMJ issues right now, although the doc got this bout under control. Then I showed him a bump (fibroma) on my tongue and he told me it's got to come off. Not cancerous now but could some day turn that way. I asked him if I could be awake for it and he told me absolutely not. A needle in my tongue would "hurt like #@%%". He'll give me the needle after I'm unconscious. So, I am supposing that Advil will be my friend when I have this done in January.

TheOneAndOnlyNora said...

I've been dealing with TMJ too! I've been wearing a splint since January to help relax my jaw and aleviate some pain. They had to get my jaw under control before they could do the braces.

Do you grind or clench your jaw? I was more of a clencher myself.

My braces are costing me $11300 :-( Jaw surgery will be an extra $5000-ish on top of that. OUCH!

Tongue surgery does not sound pleasant at all! Make sure to get the liquid advil. I don't know what all they put in the 'liquid', but it's pretty darned awesome!

Chibi said...

Oy! I had braces when I was 16 and spacers probably would've been a good idea. They didn't end up sizing the back metal brackets well, but I didn't discover this until I tried to eat my lunch later and bit down on metal. :( Back to the ortho for me!

Here's hoping everything goes smoothly!