They went on Thurs. the 26th

I got them put on thurs. morning and by 11:00 I was teaching 5 hours of public speaking. That was nuts. Nuts..
They hurt a lot on Friday. Doug went to Cincy Sun. and i got a respite from talking which was nice.
down to wax on only the lower brackets on the inside. the outside stuff, which is huge, seems to be much easier to adapt to than the razor sharp brackets. Trying more solid foods - making jambalaya tonight with fingers crossed.
ice cream is a staple.....
it will be worth it in the end - it WILL be.

My mouth is a construction zone

So yesterday - less than one week after having two teeth pulled and less than one day when I had less annoyance from the extractions, I had my spacers put in. The spacers or separators, are rubber dental elastics basically that go between the molars to push them apart in order to make room for the brackets. A nice lady - my age - was there when I went in the back (the front offices are where the financials were hashed out). I smiled at her and said that it was nice to see another grown up. She then proceeded to chat with me about spacers. According to her they are the most painful part of the braces process. Well if that's the case - ok! They have not been bad except when I chew and since I am getting used to soft foods, that's alright. Oddly the bottom ones are the worst - i don't really notice the top so much.
side bar - please excuse the lack of cap letters - i have a shift issue. Especially the i.
the tech asked me to smile and show her my teeth and when I did she said "Oh i can't wait to fix you!" That made me feel very very good about the whole thing - confident I guess. they are very compassionate which really helps.
but yes, my mouth is a construction zone with my full awareness 80% of the time at the moment. once the braces are actually on I assume this feeling fades.

Still feeling the effects

Tried to work today which was very very hard. i was so exhausted by the end of the day that I collapsed in bed at 4:30 and slept for two hours. I guess the event of having teeth pulled at 50 is more traumatic to the system than it was at 25.
Still achy especially on the left side, but that's tolerable. The worst thing is now i can't speak right! Me - the public speaking teacher - the diction specialist - cannot make a th sound without air and spit coming out my two new holes. Errg. Irritating. It will change quickly as the teeth move. Also i am so bloody self conscious about it - covering my mouth when I smile - can't wait to get over that aspect.

Better day

So now it appears that not only did i have a one in a million reaction to laughing gas (not a good one) but I have suddenly developed an allergy to vicoprophen (vicodin/ibuprophen). These are two drugs I tolerated quite well previously. I itched like I had the chicken pox all night long.
As i lay there while he was asking for the x ray since my roots were weird and he was struggling to get the one tooth out - I thought "I never want to go through this again" period. i did it willingly and know that ultimately my teeth will be the best they can be because I did. But..never again.
And in hind sight I still appreciate Pink Floyd's the Wall. What a sense of humor.
Anyway - today I have had some yogurt and some ice cream. :)
It will heal well I know - just slowly. I tried chicken and stars soup but that was too much to chew. I feel a bit like a vampire with my canines sticking out. Ah well.
Not doing anything at all today - literally not anything except I walked around the house once to see all the lovely things growing and blooming. Iris, columbine, daisies, sweet william, wild blues, lily of the valley and bleeding hearts.

ok ow

I got the two teeth pulled an hour ago. ow. ow ow.
I have a bloody spitty mouth and am currently drooling on my shirt -how glamorous.
My dentist has the sickest sense of humor. Gave me nitrous oxide and then played Pink Floyd's The Wall.
Too much gas made me very dizzy.
One tooth was problematic - long roots and took a long time to get out.
Doug is getting drugs at the store. I need them now.

There are times...

when the idea of getting two teeth pulled tomorrow actually sounds better than some situations I have encountered recently.
I am looking forward to the weight loss that I will experience shortly. It is summer after all.
Doug will take good care of me tomorrow so I shouldn't be worried, but...
Red Lobster tonight!

First steps

I am journaling my experiences of getting braces in a blog because although I think the process will be emotional and sometimes intensely personal, it will be important to recognize the journey. Only people who care about me or who may be doing a similar drastic change during their midlife will be remotely interested.
The first step occurs this Friday the 13th. I am getting two perfectly healthy teeth pulled to make room for my front teeth. That will be interesting.....Took the day off. Might do something fun before.
The drawing above is close to what my teeth look like - i will upload the actual photos later.
I have an over jet and an overbite (sever malocclusion) an overjet is more extreme than an over bite. Most people's teeth meet in the front at a 100 degree angle. My top teeth a. don't even remotely come near my bottom teeth and b. are at a 130 degree angle. Then my bite is one whole tooth forward (the overbite). I also have a cross bite BUT the great news there is the crossbite involves one tooth being pulled so that issue resolves quickly. You see, never in my life have I been able to bite down with both sides of my teeth. it is either chew on the right or chew on the left. I have often said I chew like a cow - round.
When I do bite down my bottom teeth meet with my soft palate and have been doing tissue damage for 50 years.
I have adapted a complex method for not ever showing my teeth. Try finding them in a photo. I have managed an acting career with terrible teeth, which will become much harder with age. i would like to be easier to cast. I would like to smile for the first time in my life in a resume shot. But mostly I cannot wait to bite down on a hamburger with more than two or three of my teeth involved.
Rather than getting standard braces, my parents got me inexpensive experimental braces called Crozat that my dentist (not orthodontist) managed. They were removable and both the dentist and my mother told me I was a failure because I must have taken them out too much. I was a kid - of course I took them out! they didn't work.
At any rate, my lovely new orthodontist, Dr. Forche, just smiled at me and said that the Crozat was the failure and they were taken off the market pretty quickly. He also said they would never ever have actually worked for what is wrong with my bite. The relief and other oddly mixed emotions about this are sort of confusing at the moment.