Seventh Adjustment - February 4, 2009

I was a little frustrated going into this adjustment - not at my ortho, but because the gap on my lower arch refused to close as quickly as the one on my upper had. The lower powerchain was even worse than the upper for catching food and stuff, and consequently harder to keep clean. But after a month of the lower powerchain, I could detect little progress, the gap remained, and so I had no hope of having it off this time around.

Same wires, same drill as before. I DID get to brush and floss with powerchain and wires off, my usual habit, and in so doing noticed a fair bit of separation - not quite enough to call "gaps" - between my upper teeth. Worried the Big Gap would open again, I winced and asked - ASKED! - for the upper powerchain back. Dr. F smiled a little smugly and agreed. I had them top and bottom now.

The tech did something a little different when she put the lower chain on - instead of encircling the back bracket with the loop, as had been done before, she hooked it over the elastics hook on the bracket. That formed a little triangle between the wire, the bracket/hook, and the powerchain. (I found out later that this was the WORST situation for gomming up food chunks. I was always poking at it with my tongue, trying to dislodge something. Bleh.)

On a more positive note, my (new) upper powerchain didn't go all the way from back molar to back molar; they only ran it to my premolars. Which made it ever so slightly EASIER to clean. Lose some, win some, I guess.

When I was done, I bounced back and forth between my ortho and my dentist's office, setting up the big day of both my next adjustment AND my semi-annual cleaning, February 26th - a scant 3 weeks away.