Day 52: Bye Bye Surgical Hooks!

I wrote on Monday about milestones and one of them was the sixth week anniversary. One aspect of this recovery is that you have your surgical hooks removed which believe me, is a very good thing! Today was that momentous day . . .

I had an appointment with my Orthodontist and was there a good 90 minutes or so! I have realised that where my treatment is concerned, very little ever goes according to plan :)

They first of all removed the supporting top arch wire that was put in place a fortnight or so ago and then the surgical hooks were removed which was just a question (from my perspective although no doubt considerably more difficult that I am giving them credit for here!) of snipping / cutting the wires and then pulling the wires out of their holding brackets. As soon as the wires out, I felt an immediate difference inside my mouth. The hooks and supporting arch wire obviously push your upper lip forward a wee' bit and all that entails where talking is concerned. Once they were out, it felt great! :) I talk about the small things where recovery is concerned and this was one such baby step . . .

They then had to replace some of my braces due to the wings being broken over the past two months or so. I found something out where clear braces are concerned and how you remove them and that is that they shatter compared with typical braces which are able to simply be pulled off your teeth! So, I closed my eyes and listened to my Orthodontist shatter the braces inside my mouth. How strange is that! Following this they cleaned the teeth and removed the glue that had bonded the braces to my teeth in preparation to for the new braces to be put on.

Putting on the new braces was no an issue but managing to get the new wires installed correctly proved to be somewhat frustrating (not for me please note but rather for the lady putting them on!) experience. One brace in particular was not cooperating due to a damaged brace wing which resulted in the wire constantly slipping off. I felt somewhat bad for her as she probably was not anticipating spending so much time one patient today! :) They finally decided to take the one offending brace off again and replace it with a metal brace (back of my mouth so nobody will see it) that has a hook on it instead of a brace wing.

Once all that was done, it was simply a question of showing me where the new orthodontic bands need to be placed and I was finished! As I said, I used a lot of their time this morning and no doubt created quite a mess (see pic on right). They did a great job as always and I am super impressed both with Dr. Watson as well as obviously his assistants. They do a great job!

So there you have it - I am now back to wearing just braces and it feels wonderful. Whoever would think to say that wearing braces is wonderful :) My teeth look clean, my clear braces look great, and I feel like today was an important step in the recovery process. A good day.

I have to wear just two bands, one on each side, and will continue to be banded for the duration of the orthodontia work. Dr. Watson thinks it will take somewhere in the region of six months to complete everything which is not bad at all. Hopefully by Christmas I will be completely done with braces, surgery, recovery issues, etc!

Dr. Watson had taken photographs of my face when I started treatment 16 months ago and so I took a few pictures of those pictures as I don't have them. I created a time frame comparison photograph showing my front and side profile from 16 months ago, the day before my surgery, and today. I have attached it below as well as attaching more photographs in the Photo Journal section above. Kinda cool.

I have also updated the Photo Journal section and hopefully you will it more organised than perhaps it was previously :)

I have some thoughts of how I look presently but I think I will write about that tomorrow . . .