It has been a long time coming. I have wanted braces for as long as I can remember. It wasn’t just because of the mean comments I used to get about my teeth, or the fact that I spent a long time hating smile because over the past few years I’ve grown to embrace my crooked smile. It’s about finally gifting myself another piece of confidence. Yes, I want the million-dollar-smile with straight, pearly teeth but I also want to prove to myself that I can keep promises I’ve made to myself. I promised both 9-year-old Tsepiso and 16-year-old Tsepiso that we would get braces and she’d never have to feel ashamed of her smile ever again. Throughout the 5 years I spent in High School, I didn’t smile in a single school photo. Not in Names-And-Faces, not in class photos or sports team photos and generally not in the social pictures either. That makes me sad because I don’t believe little girls should ever hide any parts of themselves and I spent a great deal of my life hiding my smile.The sun has set on that era and I couldn’t be more excited for this next phase.
The journey to Bracefaceness has been largely painful. This blogpost will come out 5 days after the braces were installed and about 6 weeks since my first visit to the Orthodontist. It has been weeks of planning, making decisions, getting fillings, inserting spacers and saving. The saving part is necessary because braces are not cheap. Mine cost approximately R33K but the Orthodontist has a very flexible payment plan so the only large amount is the deposit you pay before installation. The braces will be on for 2 years according to the Orthodontist’s recommendations but because my jaw is misaligned, I may need to extract a few teeth depending on how it self-corrects with the braces. I’ll be going to see my Orthodontist every 6 weeks to tighten the braces and then getting my teeth professionally cleaned every 6 months (an additional R600 per cleaning, but Medical Aid will pay for it). The first steps of the journey happened quite quickly. I got spacers (the blue elastics shown in the picture below) which are meant to separate my molars to make space for the metal brackets. These became agonising when the teeth started spacing out on day 2.
The pain from the spacers prepared me for the braces because by the time the braces came on, I was already used to a certain level of pain. However, the spacers made the braces installation much, much more painful. I installed the spacers on a Thursday and 6 days later on a Wednesday, they came out and I got the braces. It was agonising. I had to stop the process and take a painkiller. My teeth were already feeling very tender from the spacers so inserting the metal brackets on those tender molars felt like I was being squeezed around the jaw by the hands of Thanos. It was bad.
The pain from the braces lasted 2-3 days after installation but after that I could go without taking the painkillers as often. I can’t eat any hard foods so I’m having yogurt, soups, mashed potatoes/avo/butternut and very soft trout/salmon. I snack on Cheese Curls and mashed banana. I brush my teeth three times a day and since flossing has been really tough even with all the gadgets I have, I’ve been using a water-jet flosser. The Orthodontist prescribed a few new items that I need to use and the adjustment hasn’t been terrible. The mouthwashes help a lot, especially the Andolex-C because the braces scratch against my flesh and leave it tender. The Interdental brushes are also helpful but because I’m not doing any chewing at all, I have really had problems with food getting stuck in my braces.
This is the beginning of a really exciting journey for me and I’m so proud of myself for gifting myself a new beautiful smile that I don’t have to hide anymore. My inner child is beaming with happiness. I’ll be sharing updates on my blog from time to time but all of the frequent updates will be on my Instagram stories and Highlights. I hope this blogpost inspires you to do something you’ve always wanted and not worry about it being too late/too much/too ambitious. Gift yourself/your inner child things that you want because that’s one of the ways you build a strong reputation with yourself. xx
