It’s been a long road, though it certainly hasn’t been as bad as some extreme cases where people have had them on for years. I mean, If I recall correctly, Wegrit had hers for 6 years. In my case, the treatment only lasted for a year and a half. I consider myself one of the fortunate ones. Today, I had my braces taken off.

Yeah, of course I’m really excited to be free of them. In all honesty though, it feels like they only went on recently. Maybe that’s just a result of last year being something of a blur. I don’t know. I’ve been wearing and taking care of the braces diligently. I’ve worn the orthodontic bands as instructed. It all went really well. That all led up to today. Yes, all day I was anticipating my appointment, but I was a little surprised to find myself relatively calm about it; I wasn’t buzzing with excitement like I thought I would be. When I sat down the brackets came off quite quickly: snap, snap, snap. It was fast and painless. After a good polishing, I was fitted with a lingual retainer on my lowers, and a Hawley for my uppers.

My dentist said that I’m supposed to wear the upper for a full year, 24 hours a day. I’m definitely going through a period of adjustment with these things. My tongue seems to be pushing up on the Hawley, causing the back of my tongue to feel kind of fatigued. I’m definitely talking with a bit of an impediment. What do you expect when you’ve got a new hunk of plastic in there. I’m currently having issues with “s” and “t” sounds. The “ch” sound seems all right but it takes a bit more effort to get out. From what I’ve read online, my speech will normalize over the next few days. So, all I can do is just go through my day being fearless and having dignity. These troubles are just minor though when I consider the end results.

God, let me just say how strange it feels to have naked teeth? Every time I pass by a mirror I find myself taking a moment to just smile and see how the teeth are doing. Holy, they’re pretty damn straight now! If there’s anything I’d like to change about it, I think I’d just like to get some whitening done. Nothing that a box of strips can’t fix, right?

All throughout the treatment, I’ve been getting anecdotes about people who got braces but didn’t put on the retainer as instructed. As a result, teeth shifted and the treatment was essentially nullified. I definitely do not want to go through that. I paid for this treatment out of my own pocket. I sure as hell am not going to let it all go to waste just because I’m too lazy or I’m to embarrassed to wear the damn thing. My speech will improve. My tongue will get used to the plastic. All will be well. Besides, who is going to poke fun at me? I consider myself fortunate in that I didn’t go through much questioning about my braces. I think I only ever got a weird eye from someone about me having “adult braces” but that guy was/is a douche anyway. I’d like to believe that I carried myself in such a manner that there is no way braces could make someone mistake me for a teen. In fact, I got a lot of respect for actually going through this process. Why should this process with the retainer be any different? I have to make sure my hard earned money is going to work.

Anyway, I feel like the removal of my braces is sort of helping to mark a series of events dealing with freedom and seeking change. There’s still much more to come.