The loose bracket was becoming really quite irritating; I was hugely looking forward to getting back to see Stephen on Monday and getting it sorted out. However, the ulcers, whilst looking big and white and fierce were definitely less painful. By the end of the weekend, as I was applying Bonjela I could get by with just a slight wince, rather than the earlier histrionics of screeching and wringing my hands that I had found it necessary to employ.
I'm getting a bit obsessed with cleaning my teeth. I can still floss between the back molars so I do that first. Then I get the electric toothbrush out. That's a bit dangerous; if you get the angle just right (or wrong, depending on how you look at it) pieces of food that have lodged in the braces suddenly become loose and fly out of your mouth. If you ever go through this procedure, do not make the mistake of leaving them on the mirror after you have finished cleaning your teeth, with the idea of coming back to clean the mirror later on. They will cement themselves on there more firmly than the brackets cemented to my teeth and you will be buying shares in Windolene. Except there won't be any shares left, because I shall have bought them all.
After the toothbrush I use these rather nifty brushes:
Stephen gave me a thing called a Tepe brush to try, which is similar to these but the bristles are much bigger. It's OK, but I like these really tiny brushes. If you have any gaps big enough you can use them instead of floss, which is useful as I can't really floss the teeth behind the brace wires. They're also excellent for brushing all around the edges of the brackets and running in behind the wire. It is amazing how much stuff you can prod out; you could think your teeth were completely clean on looking in the mirror after brushing so it is well worth using one of these little skinny brushes.
I did buy some mouthwash too, but I have been having problems with that. First, it stung my ulcers almost as badly as the Bonjela. I expect that is subsiding, but it is also quite hard to keep my mouth properly shut while swishing mouthwash around. My lower lip, especially, rubs against the brackets and the ulcer gets irritated. I think this aspect will improve with time.
One marvellous effect of having braces (at least for me) is the weight loss. I've lost a couple of pounds in only 2 days. I haven't felt hungry, particularly. I certainly haven't been doing without stuff, as such, though obviously some things are just too hard to bother trying to eat. What's happening is that I am taking ages to chew each mouthful small enough to swallow. I have always been one to chew food quite thoroughly so to get it to a stage where I think it is just about small enough for me to gulp it down takes me really quite a while. By the time I've eaten about a quarter of a normal portion I've already taken ages and start to feel full. They say you should stop eating when you feel full, but even if you do (which most people don't, especially when eating something they really like) the body takes about 20 minutes to register that you've been eating. Or so I have read somewhere. If you are eating at any kind of speed you can get an awful lot of food down you in 20 minutes. With braces on, I can manage enough food to keep body and soul together in about 20 minutes. Then I feel full, so it's really no hardship. As for snacking between meals; with braces, it just isn't worth the bother, given the cleaning job afterwards. So, unless I suddenly develop a heavy chocolate mousse habit (which is entirely possible) I am hoping that the weight loss will continue.
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