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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.

My orthodontist just confirmed that it’s okay to use salty warm water as a replacement for Peridex (I was wondering about next time when they place the last microimplant).

I’m so happy about that – I can get my teeth cleaned ASAP without fear that they’ll just stain all over in a few weeks when I’ll need to rinse a lot.

I use about 1 teaspoon for 1/2 cup of warm water for rinses.