Hi, my first attempt at a story, don’t be too harsh, let me know what you think.
I had braces when I was a teenager for about two years. Nothing fancy, just clear braces with elastics. I was always disappointed that the braces weren’t metallic, but would never have said anything to anyone about that. Naturally, I always made sure that the colours were a vivid green or blue, much to my parents’ confusion. I always loved having my braces, but I must admit that after two years, when they were removed, I was glad to be free.
I’m now in my mid twenties, and more recently have been experiencing some TMJ issues. I spoke to my dentist a few years ago and he said not to worry - that fixing the problem would be more trouble than it was worth. I left it at that for some time but my jaw started to become uncomfortable. I decided to look for a second opinion, and that was how I came across Dr. Patel.
Immediately, he said that my jaw alignment wasn’t right, and that my orthodontist when I was a teenager had caused my issues. He said that it would get worse as I get older and so he recommended treatment. Both options he gave me sounded fairly drastic. Either have jaw surgery, followed by a wired jaw for 2 months and then braces for a year, or braces with appliances for a few years. To most people this would be a nightmare of a decision, but, although I knew the novelty would wear off, I was already dreaming of expanders and cribs and headgears before he’d finished talking.
I chose option 2 right there and then. After a few weeks of admin, x-rays and impressions, I went along for my fitting. He said that as I’d already had braces he’d cut to the chase and fit me up with everything in one afternoon. I encouraged this, and told him that if there was anything which would expedite the treatment in any way, no matter how uncomfortable and unsightly, I’d be happy to go ahead, because (I claimed) ‘I just wanted it all sorted’. He seemed hesitant about this, but I looked him in the eye and I promised him it was my genuine view.
To the appointment I thought I’d make myself look as youthful and expressive as possible so that he’d not question my choices of braces colours (and because I like dressing up). I wore my favourite neon green platform trainers, baggy black jeans with lots of aggressively hanging chains, and a loose fitting black hoodie over which I wore a baggy Minnesota Vikings American football jersey. Rather than my usual quiff, I decided to spike my hair into a fairly dramatic Mohawk with some hair glue. Along with my usual assortment of steel necklaces, bracelets, and ear and nose piercings, I looked epic!
The fitting took all afternoon. First the braces (metallic, yes!). He asked me what colour I wanted. I went with neon green. “Bold! To match the shoes I suppose?” he asked with a smile. I nodded with a chuckle.
“Now, appliances wise, I’m going to insert an expander on the top and bottom. The top expander has a bite plate at the front. This is all because you’ve indicated you’re happy to speed things along as much as possible, and because we need to sort out your bite. I’m also going to give you something called a herbst appliance which will help the jaw correctly align. I’m going to give you elastics to wear full time, they’ll zig zag from your k-9’s back to your molars. Maybe you’d like them in purple to go with the Vikings jersey?” He laughed at his own joke, but I indicated I thought this a good idea. We also decided to go for yellow for the acrylic of my bite plate. Neon green braces, purple elastics, yellow bite plate and a mouthful of other shiny appliances; I couldn’t believe this was happening.
Once all the appliances and elastics were fitted, he repositioned my chair to the upright position and asked me how I felt. Talking was difficult. S’s were always going to be conspicuously impossible, but I was surprised how much I was also struggling with G’s, L’s and T’s, and I was producing a lot of horrible “Ch” sounds when I didn’t mean to.
He told me not to worry and that I’d see some improvement within a few days. He told me to accept the lisp on the S’s, and that that wasn’t going to go away while I had the appliances in. He suggested that lots of patients instead “had success” if they consciously accepted their S’s were gone for the foreseeable, and that I should try to produce a “th” sound instead. Man, I was so excited.
The elastics and Herbst were strong. It took quite a lot of effort just to open my mouth. The squeaky, clicking noise of the herbst seemed very loud to me.
He turned his back, and looked around in a draw, and then turned again to reveal a mirror. “How do you like your new look?” he asked, holding up the mirror. I smiled at the mirror, and, on top of the usual glasses wearing punky looking young man with nose piercings, snakebites, ear stretcher plates, and dramatic Mohawk, I saw the metal in my mouth for the first time. The green was a strong flavour, as were the very noticeable purple elastics. The herbst appliance stuck out awkwardly. Even the bright yellow of the bite plate was obviously noticeable since the bite plate extended well below the extent of my upper teeth.
“We’ll probably have to keep you like this for about 2 years”, the orthodontist was saying. “It’s going to be annoying and uncomfortable, but so long as we’re agreed that it’s for the best, and you continue to wear the elastics as planned, we shouldn’t have any problems”.
After a short chat about hygiene and appliance care, and with a checkup booked for one month’s time, I was free to go, armed with a bag of thick purple elastics.
I waited outside the orthodontists for the bus, intending to go to the mall to a) have lunch and b) take my new, very out there look for a test drive. An attractive looking young man joined me at the bus stop for a few minutes. I couldn’t help checking him out a few times, and eventually he caught me looking.
“You’re a Vickings fan, eh?” he asked, by way of breaking the awkwardness.
“Yeth, I thupposthe tho. I’m not a huche American foochball fan, I mothtly jutht like the shichths”, the spluttering, lisping noises I was making were at least just about understandable, but I could see a sudden look of alarm on his face - “Thorry, new brathes”, I added clumsily.
“Oh right, don’t worry. That’s a lot of metal in your mouth. You’ve gone for some strong colours there too”.
“When in Rome”, I laughed.
