Bite me

Generally speaking, teeth are hip. For this I have to thank Twilight, True Blod, Vampire Diaries and other phenomenal pop-culture productions that has put fangs (and teeth) in the spotlight of our attention. Teeth are getting bloody sexy.

My teeth are however constrained by my braces. When people ask me why I have this little steel harness in my mouth, I laugh and say "I didn't like the prospect of turning 30, so I u-turned back to 15". At the same time, I die a little on the inside. Not a lot, but a little. When people ask if it hurts, and I answer "it only hurts my ego", I'm telling the truth. Sort of. It does actually hurt physically, like hell at times, but pain is momentarily and victory (straight teeth) is forever (at least if I put in a permanent retainer).

Most of my friends are a little surprised by my wicked grin-bling, as they do not remember my teeth being crooked. This is most likely so, because one of my front teeth (the evil one, the one that was on the move) was hiding all the crookedness that was happening behind. But my dentist did gently inform me that the front tooth is indeed slowly moving outwards, and will eventually succeed. Unless I brace it. And so I did.

My dentist is great. He is a young man, most probably younger than me, but very nice and to my limited experience he does a great job. For example he has taken my very sharp nose into consideration when moving around my teeth and jaws. This aspect was first highlighted when I took x-ray images before pulling out two teeth and getting the rest straightened out. Dr Dentist showed me how my lips are not pushed out so much by my one obnoxious front tooth that my lips would be further out than my nose, seen on x-ray profile picture.

Silently I thought to myself, who has lips that pout further out than their nose, is that even possible? I tried to think of Angelina Jolie's profile but failed as I got caught up in giving her mental braces in cheerful colors  Thankfully I just had to glance around the dentist room to notice that the standard nose of any Asian person is small and flat, and quite frequently their lips pout out more than their nose, in profile. Neither good nor bad, as pointed out, my "very sharp nose" will make my "very thin lips" appear even smaller if the teeth are pulled back to much. And so Dr Dentist is fixing it to just the right angle. Taking my looks into great consideration while reshaping my mouth. Much to my appreciation.

So far this is what has happened:
1) X-ray and mold of my teeth done.
2) Pulled out two teeth from my upper jaw. Not painful, but something is actually pulled out from your skull, and that is indeed a strange sensation.
3) Braces fixed, and gets tightened every third week. The first time my braces was tightened it hurt like hell. Again, someone is messing around with your skull, and it is not a great feeling. My brain simply shut down, and I was half gone for a couple of hours until I came back to my body and took some pain killers. The subsequent visits have been much less painful.
4) Rubber bands are placed between upper and lower jaw to speed things up and move the desired teeth to the desired position. The nice and sweet rubber bands, the ones that does not hurt are called Raspberries. The rubberbands that pulls my jaws tightly and firmly together and cause some mild discomfort to put it nicely, are called Lemons.

Here I am now. I have small gaps here and there, and I cannot say certain sound clearly, like th, s and ch for example, but my lower jaw teeth look great, and I feel certain that my upper jaw teeth will soon follow. At my last appointment Dr Dentist said the wonderful words that it looks very good, soon it will all be done. As I had stuff in my mouth I couldn't press him for details on what "soon" means to him, so I will just cross my fingers and wish for maybe just another couple of months.

Then I shall eat spinach, knäckebröd (very hard Swedish bread), Indian food and everything else that I'm currently restricted from eating. Well, spinach is actually eatable now as well, I just have to do a whole lot of cleaning after the meal (it's not something I eat in public). And knäckebröd can be eaten with the right amounts of painkillers circulating my body. Indian food however is something I miss badly. It appears that everything I like from the Indian kitchen comes with the ability to stain nice white braces into neon yellow- shine in the dark- type of braces.

Living on the hope here. Soon, sometime soon, I will go back to being a normal adult. With straight teeth.