Simpliclear Braces

Yeah! Finally I got courage to write this post.

Jeng Jeng Jeng....like most of you already know...I'm on freaking braces right now! *clap clap*

This post is going to be long so...you may skip this post if you aren't interested about my life.



1. WHY?

After my 25 good years, WHY NOW I WANNA PUT BRACES?
First, It's been my dream to have a straight teeth and neat and beautiful teeth (esp when smiling) but I always back off due to the price and time and pain. To be honest, my mum always wanted me to put on braces since I was secondary school. But back at that time, braces was like very ugly and not pleasant to the eye. Especially after watched Betty La Fea film which story about the braces+ nerd girl who stay single forever coz of her looks (and her metal mouth braces, too) so I changed my mind and have negative thots about braces. :-D


2. WHEN?

So like struck by lightning. It was happened 2 months ago when my gum was terribly sore and after a quick visit to dental clinic, the dentist told me that I am having an impacted wisdom tooth (again!?) so have to be extracted as soon as possible. Okay after the extraction, the dentist examined my tooth X-ray and found out there is something wrong with the gum under my molar teeth and suggesting me to meet an endodontist at once...Of course when you meet endodontist, what they can suggest you is to go for a root canal treatment and crowning. Cut story short, after discussing here and there, calculated the estimated cost 3 molars root canal treatment + crowning will cost me about $6K. Just 3 teeth hor = $ 6K. I screamed unbelievably like a banshee. So expensive!

Then I went to another dental clinic for second opinion, which is not endodontics/ prosthodontics, but just a normal dentist. Okay to give a little bit of background, Endodontist is a professional dentist for root canal treatment. Prosthodontist is a professional dentist for cosmetic dentistry such as crown, bridge, and dental implants. Orthodontist for braces one. Periodontist for gum-specialist one. Oh ya the one that extracted my second wisdom tooth is a Periodontist that is why she could clearly examine something wrong with gum under my molar teeth. Shit! no wonder I've spent $250 plus just to get my teeth extracted!
Okay back to the topic, this dentist is asking me if I have a plan for straightening my teeth in the near future and I said yes! Then he was suggesting me, rather than do root canal + crowning $6k for 3 molar teeth which is very risky (the tooth might break during root canal process and decay and stuff like that). I could use same amount of $ to just take away my stupid molar teeth and doing braces instead. Long story short, after he explained to me about braces pros and cons, etc...I've decided to put on braces... Thanks to my vanity, I chose this simpliclear braces coz it's white and pleasant to the eye. No more metal mouth hey! I'm a plastic simpliclear mouth. :-D


3. TYPE OF BRACES
So lazy to explain...basically got 4 types la.

1. Full metal braces (traditional metal wired braces)
please refer to Betty La Fea picture for more details.

2. Clear braces
The brackets are clear transparent or white to the teeth colour. But wired are from metal.

3. Lingual braces
Metal braces, but very torturing one. coz bonded to the back of the teeth. Can't imagine it though.

4. Simpliclear.
White bracket with transparent wired. Please look out for me I'll show you mine, hehehe....



4. PROCESS.
I can't explain so much about the process. Basically after I agreed to use Simpliclear, signed contract, and did an impression model of my teeth. I've got to wait for few weeks to get the treatment plan and materials from Biomers ( the Simpliclear's company) and start to do bonding. I mean, bonding the bracket to each of my teeth and put on wire on it. The bonding just took about an hour and what I did is just open my mouth, use their tools (not sure what't the name of it) to make my mouth keeps wide-open, and let the dentist do the bonding job.
Right after treatment, was like hell I tell ya. My mouth was sore and tender and sensitive and as far as I remember, I took almost 1 hour just to chew my dinner. No appetite for the next few days. As a result, I lost few pounds. Yeah! Bless in disguise, though.


5. PRESENT.
Now I am still adapting to my braces and one of the most inconvenient is to clean after food. I need at least 5 times brushing my teeth throughout the day. And flossing every single night without fail. Always have to remember to bring toothbrush kit in my bag.
I rather starve myself to die rather than having snack then have to brush my teeth again. No more chocolate. No more soft drink. No more hot coffee ( unless I use straw to drink coffee, which is very odd) No more curry. No more potato chips/ peanuts.
Ohh sometime I still slipped few words when I'm talking. Then quickly correct myself to avoid embarrassment. Must SMILE BIG in order not to have my lips stuck on the bracket. And put MORE ENERGY to TALK properly otherwise few words may have just slipped / pronounced wrongly.
Other than that, I am happy with my braces.



6. FUTURE
Next appointment is to have my molar teeth extracted. Anyway these are bad problematic molar teeth which supposed to be root canal+crown but I decided just to get extracted in order to create space for my braces treatment. I really wanted to show how my braces looks like but dammit my teeth still crooked and ugly. Gimme more time till a bit straight and presentable. Meantime, I'll gather some courage to show y'all yeah.  Still 2 years to go. Sometime I feel stupid and I was like questioning to myself, Why am I doing this!? Waste my money and my time! But every time my negative thinking surfaces, I quickly swapped it with positive thinking which is like, yeah it's a temporary investment in order to have a perfect nice straight teeth. Orthodontics is great solution to straighten teeth as well as improve bites and prolong the life of the teeth, etc.  please be patience, Deb!
Wish me luck. And will update soon after my next visit.

-Deb-