Brace day!

Yep, as I suspected, today was the day!  As of approximately 10am this morning I now answer to Brace Face, Metal Mouth, Zipper Lips, or Train Tracks.  Nah, it's not really that bad.  I actually think they're kind of cute on me and the appointment was a breeze.

I got there at 9:30 and had X-rays and pictures (all posted below) taken and molds made before the doctor came in to mount my brackets.  I was a bit on edge at first since I was at least 15 years senior to any of the other patients in the waiting room, but when I was brought back to have my brackets placed there was a guy about my age in the next chair.  He was there getting his clear braces off  and was able to share a few gems of wisdom with me.  We had a sort of passing of the torch moment.

I had popped a couple Advils prior to the appointment in preparation for the worse and was starting to second guess myself right up until my doctor looked at my upper right lateral tooth.  That's when he let out a chuckle, mumbled to himself that he didn't remember that one being that bad, grabbed my shoulder, and suggested that I might want to take a couple painkillers when I get home...awesome!

The technicial finished up with the bonding and placing my archwire and ligatures.  I was all prepared to get both my upper and lower braces done today, but the lower braces will be done at some point in the future and then both my upper and lower braces will come off at the same time.  For now, though, I have the clear Sierra Classic brackets by American Orthdotics on top and a .014 titanium heat activated wire with pearl ligatures.  I specifically asked for pearl instead of clear as I had heard the clear ligatures stain too easily.

So far, I'm doing great with minimal soreness.  My mouth isn't really even that sore; it's more of just a constant pressure and a relative numbness.  When I run my tongue over my teeth, there are certain teeth that don't quite register that something is touching them.  I'm assuming this will change as I adjust and I'm hoping to keep the pain at bay.  Wish me luck!

Now onto the pics and X-rays

And here's the real fun one.  Check out those bottom wisdom teeth.  I don't even know how they did that, but I'm sure not looking forward to having those taken out in a few months!

And, of course, now one all braced up