Day 24 A brief history of Othodontistry.

Over time I have had different people take different approaches to my teeth/jaw problems. Most are in agreeance though, that the removal of teeth in my childhood was an incorrect move by the dentist concerned. As a result I have had multiple dental appliances to either relieve symptoms or help correct my bite.

I started my first round of orthodontic treatment 2 weeks before my 21^st birthday. I had expanding plates (the pink ones in the pic) for about 15 months. Then I got braces. I fell pregnant with Declan very soon after and suffered terribly with morning sickness. The metallic taste of the braces made it fairly unbearable, so I had them taken off, and was told I could go back to treatment later (having paid for all but a few hundred dollars of the few thousand dollar bill this was encouraging). When I returned for treatment, however, I was told that I would have to pay in full again! Having no income and a small child to care for, this was not possible.

As my symptoms continued (headaches, clunky jaw and jaw joint pain) I had a few different dentists attempt to fit appliances to relieve the symptoms.

Then at the end of 2010 I went to an orthopaedic dentist who deals more with the structure of your mouth than just straight teeth. I have had 4 different appliances in the past year and today, I got another new one. The dentist is impressed with the gains my mouth structure has made, as he said that in 8 weeks, I movement I gained was about what he would expect in a child over 6 months!

Although my symptoms are getting less, my most recent appliance (the one in the bottom of the pic) is rather large and bulky and means I have a very pronounced speech impediment! The thing about this is as I have had a similar appliance previously I kind of know what to expect. The last time I had this, I was in an office environment where most of my work was over the phone and my spiel “it is Felicity calling from the CES” meant that I changed my name to Mary at work so I had fewer esses (s) and ells (l) to say! This time round though I only have to wear the appliance for 14 hours a day which means I don’t have to wear it at work!