Getting Braces In My 30s

I’ve got braces and I don’t mean the type to hold up your trousers, I mean the ones on your teeth. I’m 34 and I’ve finally took the plunge into sorting out my teeth. I feel like braces are something everyone associates with when you were younger, hence why I highlight the fact about the thirties, but in fact I’ve seen a bit of a trend lately of people similar age or older opting to fix their smile. My teeth have always bothered me and it’s something I have thought about for a very long time.

I’ve always hated going to the dentist, I’d never had a very pleasant experience and not to mention the costs, but I took the plunge a few years ago to go back to the dentist and now my teeth are in good condition.

I was happy that my teeth looked better than ever before, but they didn’t look there absolute best, in the words of Love Island, they could be happier. This was nothing to do with the condition, this was the way they looked. I’ve never been happy with the fact my teeth overlap at the front on the top arch and then it wasn’t until I got regular cleans that I realised cleaning my teeth was actually quite hard for me as I have overcrowding on the bottom which makes it basically impossible for me to clean them accurately. The best words to describe the bottom row would be ‘higglety pigglety’. I won’t subject you to pictures of my teeth, I mean no one wants to see that, but if your curious, you can go watch any of my videos here.

Which brings me to another point, YouTube, the place where trolls thrive. If any of you follow me on YouTube you will know I touched on this before, but when trolls make nasty comments about your appearance it’s hurtful, of course it is but for me when it was ever my teeth it just really hit a nerve. I would never let comments like that make me do something I didn’t want to do, but honestly maybe they did subconsciously sink in a little.

Having my teeth straightened was something I’d discussed with my dentist for a while and I did have a previous consultation but the costs and the thought of two years at the time put me off. Fast forward to now and I decided I really wanted to go ahead with treatment, it’s now or never. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to have orthodontic treatment at my regular dentist so I started to do some online research for orthodontists in London, most of the websites all looked the same, very clinical and I was pretty unsure with where to go. I finally found one that specialised in lingual braces and I was impressed by the knowledge and technology that he had that I felt confident enough to want to move forward with a consultation.

I had an initial consultation where I was given my options and I then took some time to think about it. Once I’d decided what to go ahead with the next stage was to take treatment records, so this was scans of my teeth (instead of using moulds) for the braces to be made. I decided on a lingual brace, which is the one that is hidden behind your teeth and a standard one on the bottom with clear brackets. I luckily didn’t need any teeth out, but we are going to monitor my progress in case I may need to have any out as my treatments goes on. I think the thing to think about when it comes to braces is that before you even get them on, it’s a long process, you may need teeth out, you may want to do jaw surgery to correct your bite, so it’s not a case of just getting them on quickly sometimes. It also takes a month for lingual braces to be made and two weeks for the other kind. My treatment time is between 14-24 months, but hopefully it will be closer to the 14.

It’s now been about five weeks since I got them fitted, I’ve gone into detail over on YouTube about the fitting and how it works, but the first week was really difficult, I was ready to go back on day two and make them take them off! It’s hard to get used to them constantly being in my mouth, it’s a bit like they left something behind after having work done. It was a struggle to eat on the first few days, I knew eating soft foods was advised but I even struggled at that at first.

Thankfully my eating has improved and I’ve been back for my first appointment since having them put on to have a new set of wires fitted. I have already seen changes in the movement of my front tooth and also on the bottom which is exciting.

For now, what I’ve learnt is that no matter what age braces aren’t easy and lip balm, yoghurt and wax are currently my best friends.

Have you had braces before? Would you consider them?