The Joy of Braces

No one ever explained why I needed braces. The orthodontist said that I probably would have saved myself over a thousand dollars in dental work if I’d dealt with my bite problem at an earlier age. I have at least three crowns, and I’ve had a root canal.

With the latest crown I was being careful to advocate for myself and make sure the dentist filed down the top so it wouldn’t get all my chewing pressure. Unfortunately, it brought the incisors from my lower jaw into the palette behind my top teeth. In fact, chewing left the front of my palette sore. My current dentist said she has seen people damage the roots of their front teeth if they didn’t take care of their bites when they got so bad.

Flossing with braces helped me appreciate the huge variety of food debris I accumulated in the typical meal. I’d say food particles, but that implies small, partly-masticated, microscopic, you know … particles. These babies are more like petite-fours or finger sandwiches. Talk about saving something for later. A man could live an extra week on all the good grub I can now pack around. The only difference between me and a chipmunk is that I have the same storage capacity, but mine comes with its own filing system. Before the advent of non-stick cookware, it was common for recipes for scrambled eggs to describe the number of eggs to prepare as follows: one and a half eggs for each guest and one for the pan, because that’s how much would stick. I find myself thinking that way with the food I eat. By my third Chicken McNugget, I’ve filled in all the cracks and some of the food actually gets swallowed.

I mentioned the repeated waxing of the brackets and how that’s probably the thing that really moves the teeth around. The other thing that inevitably improves a person’s smile are the daily facial gymnastics necessary to thread dental floss through all the crevices that need to be cleaned. I’ll have lips like Mick Jagger if I keep this up long enough.

I needed braces because I had a cross-bite. I had a severe overbite because my lower jaw was too short. Also, the width between my upper teeth, the width of the maxilla, was too narrow. The outsides of my upper molars lined up with the middle grooves of the lower molars. Ideally, that’s where the inside edges should have been. So the maxilla was too narrow by the width of a whole molar.

Because my lower jaw was so short, my lower teeth cut right across the track of my upper teeth, a cross-bite. So all my bite force was concentrated on the front molars.

Early on, applying wax to the hardware was not only a daily ritual, but one that occurred with every meal. I experimented with leaving the wax in place for meals, but I got tired of picking the stuff out of my teeth afterward. Then I tried to remove and replace all my wax for each meal. At first, I thought the wire and brackets were supposed to pull the teeth into proper alignment. Now I suspect that the constant pushing of wax onto the pokey protrusions is what actually manipulates the teeth.

Sometimes, while applying the wax, I heard little creaks or cracking noises. At first, I thought my brackets were loosening up. Then I realized the tooth itself was moving ever so slightly in its socket. It’s like listening to glaciers crawl down valleys. They say people who have lived through earthquakes lose confidence in the immutable solidity of the earth’s mantle. Well, I’ve been similarly disillusioned about my teeth and jaws.