Day 62, general dental check up with dentist.

Today I had my first appointment with the dentist lucky enough to extract my first four premolars in the near future.
I haven't had a general dental check up in well over 5 years, mostly due to visiting crap dentists in the past and giving up on the hope that anyone would care about my teeth, so I was looking forward to hearing about the general health of them rather than their positioning, especially from my husbands dentist who is pretty good, he has amazing things planned for him so I know I was going to safe hands.

They always ask you the general questions, health insurance, time since last dental check up, what bothers you about your teeth.
My main issues now that my crowding and bite is being fixed is my teeth's appearance, orthodontists don't remove stains or calculus. That and the fact that my teeth have white spots on them, I have never known what it is or how it got there, but it seriously has affected my confidence in relation to smiling and showing my teeth, as if the crookedness isn't enough!

After he had a look around in my mouth and made me bite a few times, he said that it looks like my expander is working well, my orthodontist was right to expand my arch and it will help a lot in the long run. My teeth are also handling it well and I do an excellent job at cleaning, he could see from my nice pink gums. Lol! I was smiling at that! I told him I had a waterpik and he said that was perfect for the job.

He wanted to look in my mouth again, this time checking my gums, which are all healthy except for the dropping I have at the front. It's still healthy, just needs to stop detaching from my tooth. He removed a small amount of calculus and told me to use a soft tooth brush at a 45' angle and gently massage the area when I brush to keep it healthy.

He also noticed what he called mottling on my two front incisors, or four incisors. This is what annoys me the most other than my crowding. It looks like horrible white stains. I was and still am so happy with the result after he buffed and polished them, no more white marks!
They have annoyed me for years.
He told me that this can be helped by using a tooth mousse, a topical creme
With bio-available calcium and phosphate. I can place it over my teeth after brushing before bed without rinsing.
It will help a lot when my bands go on, too! They had a few flavours of tooth mousse but I chose trusty vanilla, it's hard to get vanilla wrong.

X-rays were then done and he confirmed something I didn't want to know, my back left molar needs a filling. :(
Oh well.
Booked in in a few months for that, I am also on the standby list incase anything comes up.

He spoke to me for a good twenty minutes all up, asking questions about my teeth, the orthodontist and my treatment. He told me my journey will be an exciting one, he can see the expansion happening and says it looks really good. I have a class 1 malocclusion and my bite is classed as an open bite now after expansion. He thinks this may be a challenge to fix, as my front two teeth are already in the correct position, it's just they need to come in more. I don't know why but let's hope these bands are ready for me when I get braced.
I told him about the teeth I need extracted, and said that they will do all at once, two at a time, no big deal. He also said that I won't know myself once they are out, I will see some big changes in the coming months.
I left there with the calculus and stains that have been annoying me, gone, a wonderful sense of confidence and a considerably lighter purse ($28 for tooth mousse!) But all was worth it.
I like him, he got me excited, hopeful and polished off those pesky stains.

: D


- my expander arm has come off just as much as before, I have just on two weeks until I see the ortho so I am kind of considering getting some pliers and bending it back myself....
Of course, after spending $7000 I don't think I will tamper with it.
But it annoys me to the point of burning temptation, ahh. It may be doing a 'wonderful job' but it is NOT my friend!!!!