sovay | Take out your fucking retainer, put it in your purse

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Take out your fucking retainer, put it in your purse

I've had to get a year's worth of braces because the alternative was my teeth grinding into one another at angles that were causing them to splinter and would necessitate things like crowns and lots of composite if not realigned. The effects of this on my daily life are substantially nastier than I was led to believe and I don't know what the adjustment period is going to be like. Things inside my head are kind of terrible right now.

Hana Vojáčková's Milk & Sea. I think I love best the Icelandic mermaid with her trout-silver tail and the rill of turf-breaking rock that looks like a stream, but there is something about the German mermaid waiting for her bus, or maybe just watching the nighttime, commercial sea, that is a story all in one frame. I shouldn't write it before I write something with trees. Right now I am having trouble believing I will ever write anything, full stop.

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I had braces for 4+ years as a consequence of mostly not getting dental care until 8th grade. You have my sympathies. :-/

Ouch. That sounds unpleasant. Have you had orthodontia before?

Have you had orthodontia before?

Retainer in fifth grade. Headgear in seventh. Braces until, I think, eleventh grade. The jaw-clenching and grinding caused by the chronic pain of the last eight years wrecked most of it. These are Invisalign braces, which I was recommended for a variety of reasons including that they would interfere less in my day-to-day life; this appears to be entirely untrue. I know it's the first day, but right now I'm just trying to figure out how I'm going to make it through the next year without ceasing to eat entirely.

You have my sympathies.

Thank you. I've had traditional wire-and-bracket braces; I thought this was going to be less invasive. The difficult part is that it turns out not.

That's a lot of braces. Sympathies.

I've been avoiding a trip to the orthodontist myself, even though my dentist keeps telling me I should. I've already had one round of composite that just chipped right off again.

I've already had one round of composite that just chipped right off again.

That is actually what started this whole carnival. The composite on my front teeth kept popping off. I got it replaced two or three times before I was finally told it was the effect of my teeth shearing into one another (at the same angle that had required both teeth to be substantially rebuilt with composite two or three years ago) and that the problem would persist so long as my teeth remained in this jumble, not to mention further complications down the line. So, braces. So, I spent a lot of this afternoon crying and now I'm talking about dentistry on LJ. I hope your outcome is way the hell simpler!

That actually sounds a lot like the boat I'm in, except I haven't forced myself to get on the phone and make an appointment with an orthodontist yet. I had a year and a half of a jaw expander in elementary school prior to six years of braces. I'm really not looking forward to a repeat of the experience.

That actually sounds a lot like the boat I'm in, except I haven't forced myself to get on the phone and make an appointment with an orthodontist yet.

Dammit, I refuse to be Patient Zero for the orthodonics outbreak! Do you want to get together in the next few days and make sushi candy, which I can probably even eat if I remember to bring a toothbrush for afterward?

Dammit, I refuse to be Patient Zero for the orthodonics outbreak!
If it helps any, I've been putting off calling an orthodontist since grad school, so if the orthodontics outbreak is contagious, some other unknown must have been Patient Zero who infected both of us.

Do you want to get together in the next few days and make sushi candy
Yes, I do! Email forthcoming.

Oh dear. Tooth-grinding/clenching is a thing I have experience with; do you want to talk about it?

Tooth-grinding/clenching is a thing I have experience with; do you want to talk about it?

Not in terms of advice, I think; it's not a new problem. See replies to

phi here and

ladymondegreen on LJ. I've worn a nightguard for the last three and a half years, but in the fall I was informed there was too much damage built up. It isn't even a matter of clenching at night: at this point my normal bite causes disproportionate wear and tear. The dentist wanted to start the braces then and there. I didn't have the money. In retrospect, I'm very glad I was able to eat like a normal person for my wedding and the holidays, at least.

Ah, got it. Appreciate the clarification, all the more for not having been entitled to it.

(I was recommended for the cut-jaw-apart surgery by an orthodontist and then saw a specialist in orofacial pain management and didn't actually need surgery after all, which has left me with a rather hammer-nail skepticism to orthodontists. But my normal bite isn't the problem and wow, that just all sounds like it sucks, I'm sorry. Way worse than having my mouthguard regularly rebuilt from the ground up or replaced because I'm so hard on it.)

I was recommended for the cut-jaw-apart surgery by an orthodontist and then saw a specialist in orofacial pain management and didn't actually need surgery after all, which has left me with a rather hammer-nail skepticism to orthodontists.

Yeeeah. I can see how that would happen. Glad you got to skip the surgery!

But my normal bite isn't the problem and wow, that just all sounds like it sucks, I'm sorry.

I'm just hoping it works and does what it's supposed to. I really don't care if my teeth aren't flawlessly aligned and spotless, I just want not to be told that at their current rate of wear I'm looking at having all the front ones replaced.

(I was initially recommended a much shorter course of Invisalign just to straighten out the front teeth so that they'd clash less. By the time the molds were being sent off to the company, the estimate had been revised to include the fact that my molars are also at weird angles to one another, crowding and accelerating the problem. Basically, I thought my teeth were worn but sound; I've never had a cavity in my adult life. Apparently, no; they're really fucked up. That has also been upsetting. I spend a lot of time actively trying to persuade myself that my body is not disintegrating around me, reflecting the total deterioration of my mind, and I should give up on both of them. The new health problems of this winter haven't helped, and finding out I have a long-term issue with my teeth, really not.)

*wince* Terribly sorry to hear all of it. I hope things improve soon.

You made my day better by linking to that transcript of Pete Seger in the previous entry. It actually had an excellent answer to a situation I was helping with elsewhere, and gave some comfort to people who needed it.

I hope the dental work is nowhere near as dreadful as you fear. I have braces coping strategies for you if it is dreadful (did they give you dental wax? If not, poke me and I will tell you about it, and also about the merits of easily obtained numbing agents, like Orajel.)

I had three years of braces followed by extreme jaw surgery (both jaws broken and reset) followed by 5 years of maintenance, so I am something of an old hand at getting around the stupidity of braces and other dental appliances, and what one has to do to keep them from staining your teeth.

I love the bus waiting mermaid best, but that is perhaps because I spent so much of my youth waiting for buses.

Damn about the braces. I know they will prevent all sorts of pain and poverty down the line, but they hurt *NOW*. Ouch. Sympathy.

The German mermaid's wet sidewalk looks like the river of blood in "Thomas the Rhymer."

Nine

Damn. Damn, I'm sorry. *hugs if wanted*

I love the bus-stop mermaid, also the one in the snow.

You'll write again. I have faith.

Sorry to hear it.

Perhaps I'm being too literal about this, but I can't help wondering how the mermaid is going to get onto and off the bus.

It actually had an excellent answer to a situation I was helping with elsewhere, and gave some comfort to people who needed it.

I think that's wonderful. It is very fitting that he should be helping people with words spoken sixty years ago.

I have braces coping strategies for you if it is dreadful (did they give you dental wax? If not, poke me and I will tell you about it, and also about the merits of easily obtained numbing agents, like Orajel.)

They're Invisalign braces rather than wire-and-bracket (which I had for most of middle and high school), which is part of the problem. The number of composite attachments required to be bonded to my teeth in order to exert the necessary forces was far higher than I had been expecting, so that when I take the aligners out to eat, I have a very spiky mouthful of composite that my lips and tongue are doing their best to snag on at every opportunity, and the fact that I can only eat or drink with the aligners out and then need to floss and brush my teeth before replacing them and they need to be in my mouth a minimum of twenty-two hours a day is a huge issue, because I am not the sort of person who can eat one meal in the morning and one meal in the evening and not have my body try to crash on me. The one-meal plan is not a good idea. It's what happens when I am too stressed to feel hunger and have to force myself to treat dinner as a real thing; I associate it with very bad phases of my life. I carry clementines around in winter so that I can snack on them. I buy herbal chai from Porter Square Books because they're one of the few places in the Boston area that serves a chai latte that won't give me a migraine. This week I've been living on cough drops. All of these things are apparently no go for the next year. The dentist even tried to discourage me from drinking tea, telling me an anecdote about his brother who insisted on drinking coffee with his Invisalign in: "Did it affect the treatment?"—"Well, there was the staining . . ." I drink tea like I breathe. It's my major source of hydration in the winter because I am so damn cold all the time. Because my relationship with food is complicated at the best of times, I asked multiple times in advance whether this kind of orthodontics would affect what I could eat. It was perfectly accurate that I was told no, it wouldn't; I didn't realize it was the wrong axis of question. I am actively worried that I will simply stop eating because it's so much trouble. It took an effort to persuade myself to make dinner tonight and by that point I'd been hungry for hours.

And there's just the fact that it fucking hurts, but that I expected. The rest is taking me aback and it's very upsetting.

You win on the extreme jaw surgery front, though. I'm sorry.

I love the bus waiting mermaid best, but that is perhaps because I spent so much of my youth waiting for buses.

If she speaks to you, write her.

Edited 2014-01-31 01:56 (UTC)

I'm sorry about the braces! Was there a particular reason for the Invisalign? (Other than that it's the usual thing for adults, because they usually don't want to be bracefaces.)

Was there a particular reason for the Invisalign? (Other than that it's the usual thing for adults, because they usually don't want to be bracefaces.)

I was told it would be faster and less of an interference in my day-to-day life. (I stressed that the cosmetic aspects were not important to me: I didn't want to plunge back into the joy of orthodontics if it wasn't medically necessary and I didn't care about wearing a mouthful of wires if it was.) The first may still be true; we'll see how it goes. Day-to-day, though, it looks like it's going to be pretty awful.

It sounds really unpleasant. I would not automatically assume that the tea stains are either inevitable or a big deal, though. Drink your tea. There's a tendency for specialists to consider patients in terms of only the body part or system that they are treating. If she's a cardiologist, you're a heart, and if he's an orthodontist. you're a mouthful of teeth. Never mind what the other body systems might need ... .

I'm trying to recall whether they offered Invisalign as an option for my daughter's second go-round in braces, when she was already in college, and it just won't come to me.

Perhaps I'm being too literal about this, but I can't help wondering how the mermaid is going to get onto and off the bus.

Maybe she's waiting for someone. Maybe they have a boat.

The German mermaid's wet sidewalk looks like the river of blood in "Thomas the Rhymer."

DUDE I AM TRYING TO THINK ABOUT TREES THAT'S NOT HELPING.

*hugs if wanted*

Sure. My arms don't hurt.

*hugs*

(I came home this afternoon and crawled into bed with

derspatchel and was very upset for a while.)

I love the bus-stop mermaid, also the one in the snow.

The one in the snow is interesting because she's the only direct interaction with water in its natural habitat. (I've been trying to figure out what the Portuguese mermaid is doing—it almost looks like laundry, drawing up cloth as white as moving water.) I love the winter wear for the human parts of her, while the tail rests happily in the ice-edged pond.

You'll write again. I have faith.

Thank you. Part of what I'm feeling is that I was already dealing with nearly unendurable levels of pain, and then I paid someone a great deal of money to add more on top. Add the disruption of daily routine and I am feeling as though I don't know how I am going to manage the next week, never mind the full coming year. I don't want 2014 to be the year that was ruined by my braces and my inability to deal. I just wanted to enjoy it. I didn't think that was unreasonable of me.

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