I can’t quite believe it, but I’ve had my brace on for 18 months now!  It feels like a milestone!  And perhaps not the most joyous of milestones as it was predicted I’d need a brace for 18-24 months, so this means the 18 month window has gone out the window!  It’s looking more like 24 months now as there’s still a lot to fix.  We left it a few months to put the bottom brace on as it seemed like less work, but now I think the top is coming together and there still seems to be a lot to do at the bottom.  Perhaps it would have been best to just put them both on at the same time?

I may be wrong though and my orthodontist says sometimes it all falls into place at the end.  I hope so as I am ready to have my mouth back please.  Get this thing off me!

I will be patient though and will wait until everything is as perfect as can be.  There’s no point in spending all this time and money to rush the brace off and not be 100% happy with the outcome.

Since my 11^th appointment I haven’t noticed a huge difference.  I can’t tell any difference at the top at all, though a couple of friends and family have remarked how good my teeth are looking, so maybe they have changed.  They definitely look perfectly aligned, but I think because there are so many gaps to the front around my peg tooth and next to the false tooth, I can’t see past these.

Here’s what’s going on:

Overbite

My silly overbite is still 5.5mm, even though I made sure I was wearing those annoying top to bottom elastics most of the time.  Luckily I don’t have to wear them at the moment as I have gone back a wire on the bottom teeth for now.  So we’ll probably come back to this overbite once I have the thick steel on again.

Gaps for false tooth and veneer

The peg tooth and its gaps are 8mm and these need to be 6mm.  The false tooth gap is fine.  I now have a very long elastic across all of the top brace to bring them altogether and close this 2mm.  Then, as far as I know this is everything at the top aside from the overbite.

Gaps at bottom

I’d noticed there was still a gap in the middle of my bottom front teeth.  The teeth had closed at the very top, but were on a slant so there was quite a sizeable space which I could fit a large interdental brush between.  My orthodontist said it could either be the teeth have gone together slightly slanted and not perfectly upright, or the edges of the teeth aren’t straight.  She thinks they have gone together at an angle, like a triangle, so just the top bits have met.  We’ve gone back a step with the wire and she changed it to the last wire to move the teeth into a better position.  Hopefully this will bring them more upright and then we can close this gap for good!  It means the rest of the gaps at the bottom will have to wait for now.

Next steps

Closing gaps and improving overbite seems to be everything there is left to do.  I also need to ask my dentist at what point he’ll do the veneer and bridge.  Some like the retainer to be on for a while first, whereas some might do it sooner.  I’ll see what he has to say, but I hope it’s sooner rather than later or we could be heading over three years before I get the finished result.

My 18^th month brace timeline

It’s quite disgusting looking so close at my mouth!  But I loved looking at other people’s photos when I was researching whether to have a brace, so I’ve decided to share mine.  It’s also quite amazing to see the progress.  At this stage, when very little seems to be happening, it’s easy to forget just how awful my teeth were and how they upset me every day.  Seeing this difference makes it all worthwhile and reminds me to be patient!

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I was really shocked to receive an email to my inbox this week with an alarming report discovering children’s school fruit snacks contain residues of up to 123 pesticides!  Isn’t this disgusting?  At home we always buy organic if the option is available as I just don’t trust consuming chemicals.  It’s surely common sense that eating unnatural food is no good for us, especially stuff made in laboratories that would never even be found naturally.  I don’t think we even understand half the dangers of chemical pesticides and in years to come people will think we were crazy for covering our food supply in them!

Personally I’d much rather pay a little extra and invest in my health and the environment.  I don’t understand why anyone would consume chemicals by choice.  I bet if we saw the bottles of chemicals farmers used we wouldn’t drink them.  I also bet if supermarkets had to list the chemicals used on each fruit on the labels, sales for organic fruit and veg would skyrocket!

Read Why I Prefer Organic Food to see more of my opinion on choosing organic.

According to the article only an extra 1p per child per day would mean they can have organic fruit instead.  This is definitely something that I think should be enforced.  Or perhaps we just supply them with fruit for home?  I’d quite happily give my daughter a piece of fresh organic fruit each day to take in.

It is a tricky one.  Do I give her a piece of fruit to take in anyway, or let her carry on having the school fruit so she has the same as her peers?

At least it’s only one piece of fruit a day and I know at home she gets mostly organic, plus a wholefood no refined sugar diet.  I can’t shelter her forever from bad food and she does eat ‘normal’ food at other’s homes, parties and when eating out.  I still feel guilty though as I’m allowing her to have this piece of chemical filled fruit at school which could be damaging to her health.

Mum guilt is rife here where I choose to eat things because I believe they are healthier and it’s better for the environment, yet I let my children eat other things.  I just hope I can equip them with the knowledge they need to make their own choices once they are old enough to understand it all.

Are you as shocked at this discovery as me?  Would you prefer to send in your own snack to school?  Let me know in the comments.

Related articles:
3 important reasons to choose organic (other than your health)
Your ultimate inspirational guide to being truly healthy
Getting the Kids to Eat Healthier
Physical education is no longer physical!

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Don’t get scammed by these bank text fraudsters!

I have to share this text with you as I can see how easy it is to accidently get scammed by people pretending to be from your bank!  I would have been close to being fooled if this text was actually from one of my banks! 

I bank with both Santander and Natwest and I’ve had a few texts like this to confirm online transactions that are real texts from my bank.  They’ve just started recently so I wonder if it’s a new thing, or perhaps just because of my more recent spending habits.  I don’t know, but I was surprised the first time I received a real text from my bank.  I’m always dubious when I get anything from the bank.  Even when they called me and left me an answerphone message once, I thought it was a scam so didn’t call back!

It’s usually been when I’ve purchased something from Zeek that I get the real texts from my bank.  The texts will show my last three or so transactions and I simply reply Y or N to confirm if I made them.

Note - The real texts never have a phone number to call.

I do not bank with Lloyds so I knew instantly this was a scam.  After a little research on the internet I discovered this phone number is a super high rate number that will charge you a fortune for calling it.  Those who did call it say they were just put on hold and that was it, so some were on hold for ages believing it was their bank!

Never ever trust anything like this, even if you think it is real.  Always check the back of your card for your bank’s telephone number and enter it yourself into the keypad.

Have you ever received dodgy looking texts from a bank? Let me know in the comments.

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