Sunday, March 17, 2013

Braces update

A week ago I blogged here  about my decision to get braces on my teeth.  I am just back from the dentist after my 'sign up' consultation and although I have indeed 'signed up' I am feeling a bit bruised, battered and anxious.

Today I was expecting to meet with one of the Professors who specialises in the Incognito braces I have opted for-they are the most expensive but also the most suitable for me I feel-the dentist gave me the options and I decided which suited me most.

I met the Professor-Dr Anas.  He is a young guy, really nice and quite a character-but extremely professional. The first thing he asked me was why I wanted braces-I was honest and said for pure vanity reasons-then I felt a bit fickle!!

He talked me through the process-today I would have my teeth cleaned and then impressions taken of my top and lower teeth and my bite. These are then sent to the US where my brace will be custom made for me-this will take 8 to 10 weeks.

Once the brace arrives in Dubai they will call me back to the dentist and the professor will apply the brackets which are made of gold behind my teeth. Once on my teeth he will send me straight to have my teeth extracted-one side of my mouth the same day, the other side a couple of days after-and then they will fit the wire behind by teeth.

I asked him about pain and he said when they were fitted it would be a 6/10 for the first day and then decrease down to 0 over the next few days. "And its not pain Stacey, its discomfort". We've all heard that before!!!

He says when they fit the bottom brace its like 'moving from a mansion to an apartment for your tongue' in that suddenly there is less space. For the top brace he says I will have trouble saying 'Mississippi or Massachusetts' for a few days-but they are not generally words that are part of my daily language. He said after 2 weeks my speech should be fine so I need to ensure I get it fitted on my 2 week break between my Cairo business trips.

Then they presented me with my contract-to go ahead requires a AED12,000 (about £2200) upfront payment and then monthly instalments of AED500 for 16 months. I had expected it to be just the instalments but to be honest I can see why they ask for a lump sum-I haven't paid a penny so far and instalment are much easier to walk away from than handing over £2k upfront. I needed to make a snap decision which isn't my preferred way of making such a big decision but I did and gave the go ahead.

Paying £2k upfront was much less painful than what came next!!

At my first consultation I had impressions made of my teeth and they were then made into a porcelain model of my mouth. I'd expected the new impressions to be done in a similar painless manner-but this time was so painful I actually cried and my poor dentist was mortified and apologised profusely. The problem was the mouth guard thing they use to create the impression which is filled with a silicone type material to make an exact and precise impression-the medium one fit my mouth but wasn't long enough to fit my back teeth. The large version barely fit in my mouth-and I now have cuts and bruises round the side if my mouth to prove how difficult it was to get in. Currently I look like I have had lip fillers (indeed not a bad thing) but my lips are swollen and sore, my mouth has a cut on the side and ulcer and is bruised. We had to take 3 impressions of my bottom teeth and 2 of the top. The Professor kept coming to check the impressions and saying 'no, not good enough, do it again' to be post grad. He knew it was really painful but reminded me how much I was paying him and therefore he had to get it 100% right, especially as these are custom made.

I was fully informed of every step and I am still very impressed with the efficiency of the Post Grad teaching hospital I am received treatment from.  I have paid the AED12k so it's now a case of waiting for the braces to come back. I am dreading the extractions-I think psychologically for me that's the worst bit.

I had some really positive comments after my last post about this and everyone said it was so worth it-I need to keep reminding myself of that because after today, when I am feeling now like I have gone a couple of rounds with Mike Tyson I need to keep my eyes on the prize so to speak.

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  1. Ahh, I'm so sorry that was so painful for you :( I really hope that there's not so much pain in the future! My sister is also very self-conscious about her teeth, she has one that grew over the top of her baby one and so she feels it's quite obvious when she smiles, plus a few of them are crooked. So I can understand why you'd really want to get them realigned, etc. Wishing you all the best on your journey to teeth you're happy to show off!

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