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After they put in the implants, I had to rinse with Peridex again. Here’s a pic of some seriously gunky teeth after 2 weeks of rinsing twice a day:

I’m so glad I held off on the cleaning: there’s just no way I could maintain the teeth after Peridex and would have to see the hygienist again! I tried to obsessively clean around each bracket with a proxy brush, flat large toothpick, thin round toothpick, tried getting between the powerchains and the wire… all that exhausting work for nothing. My teeth still look like I never clean them.

As for the bite, it’s opening up more and my upper jaw has now shifted to the right so much that my face looks crooked. When I look at myself in the mirror, it seems okay. I must have adjusted. But when I see a picture of myself, I freak out. That’s one asymmetric face! The 2 things keeping me sane are: 1) like I already said, I don’t see it every time I look in the mirror; 2) I realize it’s temporary and will get better. Hopefully soon.

Because of my very open bite, it’s now hard to keep my mouth closed (and shut, too – I keep talking about braces to anyone who listens!). I started sleeping with open mouth, and I’m feeling the side-effects: dry mouth in the morning obviously, I don’t rest well and feel tired all the time, and my heart started aching! Also dry mouth can cause cavities to develop. And long-term mouth-breathing can cause facial deformities and nasal issues. This is just bad all around!

A couple of times I made myself stay semi-conscious, waking up at least 5 times during the night to close my mouth. This was a lousy way to get some quality rest. I’m going to find a mechanical way to keep my mouth closed at night, this is just too exhausting.

My 4th adjustment was on September 20, 2006 – nearly 5 full months since it all began.

I had 2 new microimplants screwed in, this time further apart on the sides. It was still quite painful afterwards, but NOTHING like the first time. I suspect that the first uppers hurt so much because they were probably close the eye nerve. I also have a theory for why the infection developed in front a couple of weeks later, not right away, and my ortho seemed to agree with it – well, he said it was very possible. You see, when I smiled (I smile a lot), the posts/screws/implants were exposed, and the air dried out the gum around them which allowed bacteria to grow.

Now, back to the 4th adjustment. This time before putting in these new implants, the doc just felt the bones with his fingers, and didn’t take an Xray. In addition to the implants, they put on a few buttons on the inside – horrible little suckers, they keep catching my tongue. The buttons and elastics connecting the teeth are supposed to further help keep teeth from twisting while moving them.

For comparison, here’s my before photo:

Note, my 5th upper tooth was extracted prior to the braces. Otherwise, this is exactly what I started out with.

5 months later, after my 4th adjustment:

They say it will get worse before it gets better, and boy, did it get worse!

After they put in the screws, they took a picture, and I asked to keep my used pair of these plastic “barn door” thingies (lip spreaders) to take my own records. I get a much fuller view of the mouth now (and much scarier, if you ask my husband. He’s having to take all these pics and I hope he still loves me )

Some of the buttons on the inside:

I got 4 buttons on each side. Note, they skipped the crown and instead mounted one onto the next tooth. I guess crowns/caps would give out under the pressure? Not sure about the reason for this.

On August 16, 2006 I had my 3rd adjustment. 4.5 months into the treatment, my teeth are officially messed up – no way back! (I really had no way back from the start because of the extraction.)

Very disappointing visit – the second upper implant was also loose and was removed. That’s 2 additional months added onto the length of my treatment. Have to wait for the bone to regenerate before they can insert new upper implants (even if the location of the new implants is different).

Both my midlines are off; upper arch is starting to shift to the right; spacing at the bottom; molar teeth are not in contact, getting harder to eat.

Just as I kind of suspected and was afraid of it, all the progress my teeth made in 2 weeks with implants has been reversed. Much thicker wire at the top was not able to hold them in place. I guess 2 weeks is not enough for the teeth to get “rooted” in the new spot, but still, a bit disappointing.

This is definitely a good motivation to wear a retainer when the braces are off! Teeth move very quickly.

It’s been 3 weeks since I got the implants in, and 1 week since I got one upper implant out. The other upper screw was “kind of” loose, but not quite, and my whole upper left area (like, gums and above) looked red and inflamed and there was puffiness and inflammation around the upper screw.

I have been on an intensive anti-inflammatory regimen, rinsing with salty warm water every 1.5-2 hours, still using an eyedropper, because the screw is positioned so high above, I’m afraid when I simply rinse, the solution/water just doesn’t get up there. So I targeted that one spot during rinses.

I also took 6g of fish oil daily, vitamin C, and MSM, all of which decrease inflammation on cellular level in the entire body. I tried avoiding sweets and to get a lot of sleep every night. I had to stay up late a couple of times, and I actually noticed that the following day there was no change in the inflammation at all.

However, for 2 days that I slept in, I mean REALLY slept in, like 11-12 hours which is abnormal but I felt tired and like it was something I needed to do, the inflammation seemed to go down a lot during the day with no other changes! I think it’s important to let the body regenerate itself, give it as much rest as possible.

It’s the end of day Wednesday and just this Monday the screw was still a bit loose (I touched it gently with a Q-tip), but today it seems to be firmly in. The entire red area is normal light pink color, and there’s maybe 0.5mm of inflammation around the post.

I finished my Peridex bottle last Friday (2 days after my emergency appointment) and have only been rinsing with salty warm water. I’m sad to note that Peridex DID leave stains on the inside of my teeth, right on the gum line, that looks like tartar. My teeth constantly feel dirty now, so I’m going to get a cleaning ahead of my schedule (hopefully next Saturday, instead of in September). On the other hand, I will be getting the second upper screw fitted again in 5 weeks, and I’ll have to use Peridex for 2 weeks again. So maybe I should wait for that after all, and THEN get the cleaning done. *sigh* Don’t think I can stand the dirty feeling for another 2 months!