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The day has come to put on my new lingual braces.
I received the large box containing my lingual braces set up, which took 8 weeks to be manufactured (see my previous blog regarding the virtual set up and manufacturing process), and then it took another 3 weeks to schedule an “appointment” for myself in my own clinic! I guess my staff didn’t want to take me away from “real” patients, since if I was in the chair, then I couldn’t be working on all the paying patients.
The braces came in a tray that is custom fitted to my teeth, when I fit the tray to my teeth, the braces are held tight against my teeth, exactly where they should be positioned. This way of placing braces on to the teeth is called “indirect bonding”, since the braces are placed onto the teeth with help of a transfer tray, indirectly. There are several advantages to using the “indirect bonding” technique, the main ones are that it should require less chair time for the doctor and the patient, and the positioning of the brackets should be more accurate, since they are initially set up in the lab, with better vision to its placement.
Once I have tried the tray in my mouth, to ensure that the fit is good, it is only a matter of cleaning my teeth, putting some special glue on the back of the braces, and then insert it back onto my teeth. The glue sets in about two and half minutes, at which time, the tray can be removed, and the braces are now glued to my teeth. I can’t say that the whole process went according to plan, because some of the braces came off when we removed the tray. We had to clean up the teeth again, and try to re-glue the braces again. We have been using this technique for very successfully for all our lingual braces patients, so it was not something new. The slight glitch of some of the bonding failure we had to chalk them up to working with a new system. I will up date you on future bonding experiences when I get to work with this system a few more times.
Once the brackets are securely placed on my teeth, we just had to insert a wire into the braces to begin the process of moving my teeth. The wires, as previously explained, are also very special. They are robotically bent to fit exactly to the final position of where we want the teeth to move to. Therefore, they are also custom made to work with me and my set of problems.
After about an hour of being in my own dental chair, now I am officially a braces wearing, metal mouth! However, because the braces are placed on the back of my teeth, they are completely invisible. Invisible does not mean, trouble or pain free, I will update you on my struggles with this new experience in my next blog.
My before picture
My lingual “tongue side” braces
The time has come to have my braces bonded!
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