A couple of years ago, Violet’s dentist said that we may need a palate spreader- a medieval looking device that didn’t seem completely necessary. Now we’ve reached a point where she’s lost enough baby teeth that’s it’s clear that the adult teeth have nowhere to go without some help, so her orthodontist said braces were a good option.
She was apprehensive about getting them, but I assured her that braces have come a long way from what they used to be and it wasn’t going to be as bad as she was expecting, although to be honest, I’ve never had braces and probably don’t know what I’m talking about.
They are not cheap. I have spent less money purchasing a used car what we are paying for these things, but we got a signing bonus of a spare retainer. I’ve been assured by the dental assistant that it is wise to have a spare retainer because not only are they also pretty pricey, but dogs really like to go after them and chew them up.
Hopefully not while the child is wearing them.
Anyway, she’s adapting fairly well, though she does look sort of angry most of the time now because of how her mouth is set. I bought a bunch of squishy foods for her to eat until she gets used to them, but on the first day she couldn’t even eat pierogies, her favorite food, so she just sucked the filling out like a little potato vampire, or as the google assistant translated: Vampiro De Papa- her new nickname.
Worth noting that within hours of getting them, a wire and two metal bracket bits broke. The next day was another trip to the orthodontist and later that same day, another bracket came off, but it didn’t bother her and is just spinning on the wire so we can wait until Monday to bring her back in to give her poor mouth gets a rest. It’s nice that her Orthodontist is in the pretty Lakeview area, because it looks like we’re going to be there pretty often.
We’re signed on for 15 months, so hopefully the mishaps with these won’t be anything too extreme.
