Braces Update: Four Months In and Elastics Are Working!

Exactly two weeks before Christmas Day I had my most recent orthodontist appointment, and he started me on elastics in a triangle configuration on both sides, worn 24/7 except when eating and brushing/flossing my teeth.

I may be the most excited patient he's ever had to be told she has to wear elastics, but I was really anxious to get them and start working on straightening out my bite, as that was the reason for getting braces in the first place.  I could have lived with the slight crookedness of my teeth easily for the rest of my life had I not fractured my jaw and messed up my bite, but not being able to chew properly is a big deal.

In just a little over two weeks of wearing my elastics religiously, I can already tell a difference in my bite.  I am so pleased!

Here's what my bite looked like on day 1 in braces (left) and eight weeks later (right).  You can see how off-center my midline (the line between the center two teeth) is on the bottom.  As a result, my molars were not meeting correctly.

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Today's photo on the right, four months since I got my braces (to the day!) you can see that my midline is perfectly centered when I bite down while wearing elastics.  Woo-hooh!

Although I still have an "open bite", which means that my front top teeth don't overlap the lowers at all, it is closing up a bit with the elastics.   And my bottom teeth are much straighter; there's no longer a downward bend in the wire on the lower right side (left in the mirror-image photos), where I had a tilted incisor.

You can't see from straight-on photos how much of an overbite (technically an "overjet") I have.  It's still there but less severe since starting elastics.  One of these days I need to take a side view photo.
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The alignment of my top teeth hasn't changed nearly as much as the bottoms as he's been using a lighter wire there, and top teeth just tend to move more slowly, for reasons known only to orthodontists, but there has been a small amount of improvement there.

If I were to stop wearing elastics today, I am sure my bite would revert back quickly.  I'm not sure how long I have to wear them to make the changes permanent, but my orthodontist will keep me in them until he knows the changes will "stick", I'm sure.  Although I want to be done with braces as soon as possible, I want to wear them until I know my bite will be fixed permanently.  I'll wear retainers afterwards to keep the teeth aligned, but they do nothing for bites.

My teeth have been a bit sore since I started wearing elastics, but after the first 3-4 days, nothing I can't handle.  My next appointment is not until the end of January, so we'll see how things go between now and then.