MASSIVE update...

Well, yeah. I havent posted in a good while... but better late than never :)

So I've had my braces now for almost 4 months and I get my expander out in exactly one week today! Holy moly, I cant believe its been 6 months since I stopped turning this damn thing. I havent really struggled with the expander at all, except for the speech, but that isnt anywhere near as bad as it was in the beginning. I've only had 2 wire changes since I've had my braces on and the last was almost 2 months ago so my visits are few and far between (which I dont mind in the slightest) My gap is long gone and my teeth are - I would say - 80% straight. I will post some pics at the end to show comparison...

I think the worst part of having the expander is you cant really have a long conversation with someone because your speech gets sloppy because your mouth gets tired. I had dinner with a friend a few weeks ago and we talk about 100 miles an hour and after a while I started slurring almost - she found this hilarious of course as all good girlfriends do... well mine do :) all in good fun though. She is particularly amused at how I say 'zucchini' or a courgette to all your out-of-australians... and also a 'skinny latte'. Its the 'eee' sound that I have trouble with and those 2 words seem to be the worst. You must be wondering why I say zucchini more than like, once a year, well I eat them about 3 times a week because I love them, and I also give a little diet advice to women around the office (long story - I go to the gym and eat pretty well so I seem to get bombarded with diet and exercise questions) and I normally suggest eating zucchini as one of your vegies for the day. Ok I rambled a bit there, back on track now. So that is probably the only bad part about my expander. Eating is fine, swallowing is fine, exercising is fine, speaking is ok.

Now onto the worst part of having braces... It would have to be flossing. What an effort that is, and so tedious! The food getting stuck isnt so bad because that happened to me before braces anyway - seems to happen to all the women in our family actually! Pretty funny. I think its because we have big teeth or something... but the flossing is by far the worst part. I try and do it everyday but its more like every other day :(

I have to say though that I am so glad that I went through with all of this. It really was an amazing experience with the surgery, then the gap, then the braces. I only had a few moments where I was really annoyed and frustrated with everything. But that soon passed and I was back to normal again. I found the gap amusing most of the time and used to smile at people just to make them do the double take. I must have looked like a real weirdo, but I dont care. I sent my same girlfriend who made fun of me a picture of me doing this massive buck toothed smile with my 10mm gap to cheer her up one day. It worked, and still works :) You cant take yourself too seriously when you have a gap the size of dinner plate between your 2 front teeth. And no one really cares anyway. Nobody even noticed in the beginning until I pointed it out.

Anyway here are my pictures of before and now... and I promise to update more regularly now.

BEFORE

NOW

Got a few more freckles too from xmas holidays at the beach :)