Moonlit Narratives Blog

I was actually a little nervous today. Why? I have no idea. I’ve been through enough dental procedures within these past several years, I really don’t have an excuse to be nervous anymore. The extraction went pretty smoothly. Didn’t feel a thing. I made sure they gave me enough lidocaine gel before using the lidocaine-filled syringe. I still can’t believe a healthy tooth had to be sacrificed =(. Dr. L examined the slightly “loose” tooth and thought it was within the norm of having braces. I sat in the waiting room again trying to put pressure over the “surgical” site to stop the bleeding. I was determined to not leave without a full mouth of archwires and elastic ligatures. I was warned Dr. B would not proceed until the bleeding ceased. Remember I had to plead with him to make this a back-to-back procedure and he was reluctant to give-in. The lidocaine wore off about a half hour after the extraction and I started to feel some pain. I began to worry a little but, I’m so grateful the pain disappeared by the time Dr. B was ready to work on my braces. Though I complained about the clear elastic ligatures taking on the color of my food, I wasn’t brave enough to choose among red, blue, green, or purple. I hate to admit this but I would have went for pink or smoke color if he had them (this is the kid in me). So now it’s round two with the clears and more potential (okay, guaranteed) staining. I still have a big jar of pickles left that no one will help me eat. My husband hates pickles. Right now I’m slowly trying to finish my salad but I have a minor aching from the braces so I’ll just drink tea or whatever and try to eat something soft later. The visit in total took two hours but now I can finally start my countdown to beautiful teeth. This is not an experience for the faint-of-heart. I think the weirdest part of today’s ordeal isn’t the braces but the gap in-between my teeth (I can feel the edge of one tooth and the gap on the other side). Can’t wait until the gap closes; I’m hoping it’s about a month or less…that’s why I wanted the archwire for the lowers so badly. I was instructed to avoid rinsing my mouth for 24 hours due to the extraction (probably to not interfere with clot formation) but I think I’m going to bend the rule a little and do some gentle rinsing later tonight. I don’t want to go to bed with food stuck to my braces.

September 18, 2008