Orthodontist, Day 3: The braces

Today I got braces. The lady at the counter had me go back and brush my teeth with this horrible-tasting toothpaste that looked like cement at first. After returning to my Mom, this boy and his Mom came in and he went back to brush his teeth (you’ll understand why I’m mentioning this later). Two seconds after he came back and had her open the toothbrush (they are disposable). The really nice lady that I like called me back. I was very happy about that. The first thing she did was remove the pretty-colored spacers and then went over everything we would be doing. After that she began testing the ‘rings’ (as she called them) out on me. The first three were fine after she found the right sizes. But the last one was painful. I think that the ‘ring’ was digging into my gum and I swear that it bled for a few minutes. She did finally figure out how to slant it up and get it to stop. While she was getting something else I got a quick look around the room. I was the only one there except for Toothbrush Boy. He was just now getting his spacers removed.


The girl stuck lip spreaders in my mouth and stuck cotton in with it. She’s like “No one wants cotton in their mouth, but just give it a chance and it’ll help.” That’s my new motto. Dr. Cryder came and glued the ‘rings’ onto my teeth. He also rubbed very weird products on my teeth. Thank the lord that my tongue couldn’t get up there thanks to the cotton.


When he was gone, the girl had me rinse my mouth out. I could feel something on my top teeth, and I guessed that it was the products. She was about go get the headgear and–
“THAT IS NASTY!!” Toothbrush boy yelped. I was trying very hard not to laugh at that.

She got me my headgear and had me choose the colors. I chose red. Then she asked me what color I wanted for the case. Blue. Afterward she spent fifteen minutes in an attempt to get the headgear to fit in my mouth and through the little hole thingies on my back molars. Eventually she’s like “Dr. Cryder, can you come help me with this?”

Five minutes.

He comes over and does very strange stuff to it until it fits in my mouth. While he was doing that he–“OH MY GOSH! THE BLACK IS AWESOME! Toothbrush boy yelps again–asked me, “And do you know why we are making you wear this headgear?” I’m like, “No, not really.” He explained that the back molars needed to be lined up in order for it to work. After that they figured out how long to make the little strap thingy and finally I was done with the headgear.

The girl explained– “WILL THIS HEADGEAR CHOKE ME IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT?”– what I could and couldn’t eat and then had me go get my Mom and she went over the entire thing again.

All in all it was an amazing adventure. I only have to wear the headgear for six months and then its over with. Stay tuned!