We're Heading Towards Finish...

My daughter has been through you know what with her mouth and orthodontic work. Her bone structure was too small, mouth too narrow. Several of her adult teeth were jammed up in her gums unable to come down, too many of them. The x-rays of her mouth were really bad. This would have eventually caused problems with talking and eating for her.

The choice was to pull several adult teeth so a few of them could drop down, leaving her without some of her adult teeth in the front (which would've been a blow to her self-esteem I am sure) or widen her bone structure with the use of a palate expander and then braces. The recommended route was the palate expander and braces. We went with this route. We couldn't pull adult teeth at age 10 and take away the opportunity for her to have normal looking teeth when she smiled for the rest of her life.

The palate expander broke the palate in her mouth apart and widened it. This was a horrible experience because I was the one who had to twist that key every day to widen it just a little bit, hurting her. It hurt me to hurt her. She'd lay there with tears sliding down her face. I would do what I needed to do and not let her see me shed any tears over it later. Thankfully, this was a short-term procedure! This then filled in and hardened so her mouth was wider.

Then came the braces. This hasn't been too bad.

Right now, we are waiting for one adult tooth to drop down. The rest have come down. They've been moving her teeth around to make room for it and now we wait. If it doesn't drop down soon, they will have to cut into her gums and pull it down. Obviously, she hopes it falls down by itself. So do I.

If that tooth was down, she'd be in braces for another six months and be done with it. As it stands now, we are probably looking at closer to a year. We're through the worst of it though. The palate expansion was the worst. That one was short term, which was a relief, and then a holding expander was placed there for the last six months or so. They took her holding expander out of her mouth today so she's thrilled about that.



Come on tooth...drop down!!