Yesterday I went into Dr. K with a loose molar band on the upper left side of my expander. This was my second visit to the office because this and I knew it wasn't me or anything I'd eaten. My diet has been mostly softer foods because of the pain in my teeth and lack of tolerance for that pain over the past few months. I had also been dealing with a few sore spots on my pallet due to the expander cutting into my pallet.
I wriggled in pain as the assistant tried to get the bar off of the band on that side so she could take the band out of my mouth to reglue it, but finally they decided they'd just have to leave it in and reglue it without removing that bar. They dried the tooth, aired it out, had cotton roles to keep the moisture away from the tooth and then reglued the band. They then had me bite down on the bite stick to push the molar band up and around the tooth. It didn't want to stay and when they saw that it was causing sores because it was digging into the roof of my mouth Dr. K said they were going to remove completely.
Those were heavenly words I must say...but then I began to wonder where that was going to leave my treatment plan he had leading up to my surgery in several months. He said he is confident that having moved my teeth as much as he had that using the braces he'd be able to get the results he wanted prior to surgery so I was comfortable with that. Now the removing process of the expander was another painful story in of itself.
It was quite painful due to the rotating of the teeth behind my incisors which were banded for the expander. Both have crowns on them and on 'my' right side the crown had begun to slip down (look in the picture above you'll see it how low it sits). I was in tears by the time they got that thing out of my mouth. I'm pretty tolerant of pain but I was ready to jump out of the chair as they pulled this thing out of my mouth.
Happy to say, I now have some Ovations on my uppers and they are looking much better than those silver bands I had wrapped around my teeth. My teeth are quite sore and will be for a few days. My bite is way off due to those crowns slipping down so eating is quite a challenge right now for me. It's been really a soft diet since yesterday I can barely even bite down because these teeth are hitting together and they're the ones that are causing all the pain. I'm just happy to be in braces and out of the upper expander.
