Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Brace face...

Well I realised yesterday that I should have been an orthodontist.

After what seemed like a very long time of having the orthodontist touch my teeth(seriously nothing is weirder than having your teeth fondled.) opening and closing my mouth and having my jaw wiggled into it's proper position he laid it down for me. He said a bunch of things about bites and crowding and asymmetry but the the two things he said that really stood out were this...
"Your looking at a year and a half to two years and the max cost would be 6300 for everything."

Huh.

He said it could be less but it wouldn't be any more than that, it really depended on my teeth.

Were talking old school silver braces here. My teeth don't even qualify for the Invisalign system.

I always wanted the silver ones though so it's cool.

Then he mentioned my jaw and how my bite is all sorts of messed up because my bottom jaw decided to stop growing before my top jaw did. I do sometimes notice if my mouth is closed all the way that my chin is off to one side. I tend to not close my mouth all the way because it starts to hurt my jaw. So this off side chin of mine could be fixed if it really bothered me...by breaking my jaw. Whoa right? That wouldn't happen until 6 months before my braces came off and as the Ortho said "It's not fun and you wouldn't want to go outside for about a week and you eat only liquids or mush for about 6 weeks."
It's something to think about but it would mean I didn't have to wear a night guard every night. Nothing sets the mood like a night guard.

I sort of have to get braces. At this point my teeth are shifting because I clench them while I sleep, the night guard just keeps them from wearing down, when I wake up in the morning I've clenched my teeth so hard that they are stuck in the guard and I have to pry them off. In the last little while it's been getting harder to actually chew, I have to have yogurt for breakfast because I honestly can't chew for the first few hours of my day.

But YIKES 6300 dollars is a lot of money! Of course he has a payment plan but I still need to come up with an extra 1300 for the initial payment. I'm seriously thinking of getting a part time job on weekends. Sigh.

5 comments:

The Professional Bridesmaid said...

Yikes. That's a hefty sum. Maybe you need to do some shopping around? Or see if you can get a deal through U of T dentistry? My sister has gone to the student clinic for regular dental work. Perhaps they do orthodontics?

Brandy said...

UofT does have an ortho clinic but you are on a wait list for over 2 years. If I was smart I would have signed up as soon as I moved back!
It's not something I can even really ask about it's not like any of my friends have them or have kids that have them!

The Professional Bridesmaid said...

2 year waiting list???!!! yowsers. maybe you can find a recent grad. sigh. teeth are expensive. on another note, i'm so envious of your white Barcelona chair. i so want one. the BF did not, plus it didn't match our decor. hehehe.

Bumpy Belly said...

Ugh! I'm wearing old school silver braces right now. I'm halfway through about one year of them. It's actually the reason my wedding is in march instead of this fall!

It cost me about 5K for everything and I do the monthly payments interest free through some financing company.

It doesn't hurt as much as I thought it might but it feels weird. I still feel funny smiling. Good luck!

Bumpy Belly said...

This sounds so dumb but the worst part for me has been feeling self-conscious about them. It's been 6 months and I still feel weird smiling around people! My teeth get a tiny bit yellow around the brackets and it's really hard to get it clean so I'm shy about smiling.

Silly, right? Honestly, other than a few sore spots from time to time inside my lips, I don't think they hurt much at all. I haven't done the rubber bands though - that's next month!