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Well, here’s the news: 2 of 4 of my orthodontic screws got inflamed. One – more so than the other, and it also was very loose. I went in for an emergency appointment today and they had to take out the loose screw. Before they can put one back in, we have to wait for 6-8 weeks. This is an unexpected setback

In addition to the inflammation, I had deep grooves from wire ties cutting into my gums. In one spot gum even sort of receded (got lifted up). I was told it will go back to normal. I hope so!!! It’s on my upper tooth #3 and it’s right in the front and is very asymmetrical at the moment.

They took off the wire ties from the top completely. I now just have one screw at the top and a big ol’ red hole from the second screw. They re-tied the bottom teeth in a slightly different way so there’s not so much pressure on the gums. They also changed the wire at the top and put in a really thick, heavy-gauge one. I’m guessing this prevents the teeth from sliding easily back into the pre-implant position (my top teeth really moved in these 2 weeks, so it would be too bad if all the progress they made would be undone).

Removing the loose screw was a bit painful, so the doctor gave me one shot and then drove the post out with a screwdriver. I got a sad chuckle from seeing how assistants were afraid to even touch the screw, cause with only a bit of movement it would wiggle and I got a weird feeling in the bone, so I’d moan

Hope I can get the inflammation in the other upper screw under control. I’d hate to have to take it out, too and wait even longer. I was told to continue rinsing with Peridex beyond the originally prescribed 2 weeks. I got a bit of staining on a tooth from it, but they scraped the stain off today. I don’t mind the temporary staining, as long as Peridex helps. I know that most of the staining, if not all, can be removed by my hygienist at the cleaning.

I’m due for a semi-annual cleaning this September but I’d love to get cleanings more often while in braces (once every 3 months or so). However, it’s $100 every time and I keep telling myself I’ve already invested a lot of $$$ into my Oral-B Sonic Complete and Oral-B Professional.

Ortho-implants have a successful fitting rate of about 80%, which means one in 4-5 screws will not “set in” – it will be shaky and will move in the hole.

2 weeks after the procedure, my bottom 2 screws are firmly in and there’s no inflammation there at all. My top screws are a different story. At first they looked to be the best fitted, with no infection, bleeding etc. Now, however, one top screw is wobbly and infection has started around it where there wasn’t one at first.

I’m going in for an emergency appointment tomorrow, hopefully they can somehow stabilize it. I suspect they will screw in a larger diameter post, but we’ll see.

My face is no longer swollen, in fact swelling went away completely 2 days ago (1 week after the procedure). Redness and inflammation areas around the posts are getting smaller. I accidentally scratched around one screw with a toothbrush so it bleeds a little sometimes, and one of my lower screws still really cuts into the lip.

Cleaning the teeth now takes longer. It’s not particularly harder, but I’m using more tools to get the stuff out and it takes double the time as pre-implants. Proxy brushes (“bottle brush”) have been very useful, as well as my trusty Waterpick. Peridex is leaving some black stains near the wire underneath the elastics, so I’m picking those spots one by one with a super thin bamboo toothpick. I still feel I’m getting the best results using both my Oral-B Professional rotating brush and Oral-B Sonic Complete. I couldn’t be without either one now; they accomplish different tasks very well.

Teeth hurt like after a really tight adjustment. I saw movement on day 2: one of the 4 teeth being moved shifted by 1mm. It’s in the “freshest” space, where I had a tooth extracted right before braces. In the spaces where I had extractions a long time ago, I’m only now starting to feel some loosening. Despite all the discomfort I’m really happy to have at least some progress.

I can’t bite down into anything even semi-hard, and even lettuce leaves are hard to chew. I’ve been living on local ripe peaches, salmon and “blended” salad… and not much other food.

The “blended salad” is something my husband invented especially for me Green cabbage, leaf lettuce, dill and/or parsley made into coarse paste with a hand blender. This way I’m still getting my fruits and veggies. I wouldn’t be able to live on puddings and milkshakes, without any green food.

Another soft food that worked as a snack for me is bananas. Not my favorite food but they worked well as an “emergency” snack.

Today is day 3 with orthodontic implants. My face is a bit swollen, like if I put on a few pounds. Not any kind of localized puffy swelling, just overall my lower part looks fuller, and cheekbones are a little chipmunk-like. My face feels hot “inside” if that’s possible. I don’t have fever (measured my temp this morning), but internal temperature in the face is probably slightly elevated.

Lower posts are cutting into the lip – deep. So I covered them with wax for the night and today all day. I probably should’ve skipped that until it’s all healed up, because I just noticed there’s inflammation and discoloration around lower posts. Bacteria was probably getting caught up there in the wax. For now I won’t be covering them up anymore, even though it hurts a lot.
I’m rinsing with calendula tincture (1tbsp in 1/2 cup of water) and very salty water during the day, also twice a day – with Peridex. Hopefully, since I didn’t keep the wax on very long, infection is not serious.

I only ate twice today. Had chocolate cake with milk for breakfast, which sounds great even if not exactly healthy breakfast food, but it didn’t taste that great. I think Peridex is killing my tastebuds. Dinner was some buckwheat with canned salmon, both also tasted quite bland. Still can’t bite down properly and all this pain is killing my appetite, anyway.

On Wednesday, July 19th I had my second orthodontic adjustment. This was dramatically different from what most people go through during an adjustment. I got fitted with orthodontic implants. This is a very new technology, that has been in use in Europe for about 5 years, and only for the past 2 years – in North America. My orthodontist is also a surgeon himself, and has been practicing use of these implants for a little over a year.

The purpose of using these implants is to move some teeth without affecting the other teeth if they’re already positioned well or would be adversely affected if they were used as anchors. In my particular case, all back teeth have to be moved forward, and relying for this on my front teeth would be wrong, because they’re in good relationship to each other as it is (Relatively speaking – they have shifted since the treatment started. Some gaps appeared at the bottom and top midline has shifted, but all in all, they’re well positioned above/below each other and bite is also fine in the front).

The procedure begins with an X-ray. They did a Panorex, so the doctor can see the exact current positioning of the teeth and evaluate where the implants should be placed. He decided I needed 4 of these suckers, right in the front. 4 spots were frozen topically, then I got 4 shots. That was pretty unpleasant, but objectively speaking, DURING the entire placement, these anaesthetic shots were the most painful things. Now, AFTERWARDS, is another story, but I’m getting a little ahead of myself…

After the shots I was told to rinse with Peridex for 30 seconds. It was kind of awkward because 2/3 of my face got numb very quickly and I wasn’t controlling my mouth that well. The face was frozen from about middle of the nose bridge, through the nose tip, down to the chin. I rinsed as best as I could and spit out. Then they waited around for a few minutes and it began!!

Using a sharp hook that dentists use to clean out stuff from between your teeth and poke in cavities, Dr. touched my gums to test where I still had sensation and where it was numb. Then, looking at the Panorex a lot, he used that same sharp hook to make holes, markers for where the implants would go. It didn’t hurt but feeling the pressure from your gum being pierced is no fun. Then he grabbed a small sterile package with a titanium “screws” (that’s what the implant is, basically). He said the size was 1.64 or 1.46, something like that. That’s probably the diameter in millimeters. The screw head, the part that I now see screwed into my jaw, looks to be about 2mm in diameter. So he put this little screw onto a tip of a screwdriver, and started driving it into my jaw. Each implant took about 45 seconds to fully screw in.

Then he gave instructions to one of the assistants what kind of wires to put in, how to tie wire figure 8’s to what teeth, and where to put powerchains.

By the time they figured all that out (about 5-7 minutes) my anaesthetic shots were unfreezing and I started feeling very raw pain, all over the mouth and face. They gave me ibuprofen, but it was a little too late, as it took a couple of hours to work. If I knew it would be so painful, I would’ve taken Ibuprofen at home prior to this. A megadose, too.

Interestingly, they said some people don’t feel anything at all, others feel this incredible pain (which I did). I personally think this can’t NOT hurt, it just some people’s shots take longer to unfreeze, so they probably start feeling pain a bit later.

On the pictures below, you will see how they tied my teeth. They chose one tooth to act as an anchor for those that are to be moved forward. That anchor tooth is tied with a wire to the implant, to prevent it from moving itself. Then the brackets are fitted with a clear powerchain, which will pull the back tooth forward.

You can see my teeth, especially the bottom ones, have loosened up considerably and look pretty messed up. Lots of spacing there now, about time to start keeping them place!

Wire ties and partial powerchains.

Obviously, it’s done in steps. So first one tooth will move foward, and once it’s in the right position, it will become an anchor for the tooth behind it, and so forth.

At the end, I rinsed with Peridex one more time, they took pictures of my new hardware setup – or as the doctor called it “jewelry” – and I was on my not so merry way.

Length of treatment with these is still undetermined for me. I wasn’t given a specific answer, except a “reassurance” that it’ll be “more than 6 months… hopefully less than a year”. Basically for most of the treatment I’ll have these in, that’s my entire treatment pretty much. Once the implants are out, there will be only minor re-adjustments left, like put the midline back to the middle, and sort out other small things.

Afterwards, the pain was horrible, really quite monstrous. My mouth felt like one raw open wound. I went straight home and took a nap – no way you can work feeling so much pain. By the end of the day, I took 8 ibuprofens total but it still hurt. It’s almost like it didn’t help at all!

After the nap, I felt I could eat a bit, and had watermelon cut in small chunks. It was easy to crush with the tongue and swallow. Still, took me a while (I ate 1/2 watermelon, my only food in about 12 hours), and as soon I wanted to eat a clementine orange, I realized all my teeth hurt and I can’t bite down. This was way worse than when I just got braces. Implants cut into the lips like crazy, again – much worse than the brackets ever did. They’re positioned under much softer part of the lip, so I feel them more.

I was prescribed Peridex for 2 weeks, to keep bacteria away from the implants (it was a minor surgery, after all), but I wasn’t up to going to the pharmacy that day, so at night I rinsed with a strong solution of sea salt. Same thing in the morning. It stings like crazy, but is a good idea, as the pharmacist told me today. I did get the Peridex and started rinses.

Adjustments will now be more frequent – yay! Instead of the regular 6-8 weeks apart, I’ll have to go in for a check up every month, which I think is fantastic. At least I’ll feel like there’s something happening, at least some progress, however minor.