Last night, I went back to wearing retainers. Darn it hurts! I had orthodontic braces when I was in high school. Back then it was so cool to wear them. It’s an “in” thing. I don’t know why I needed braces but I pushed my parents to let me wear them. However I was aware then that I had this big ugly gap in between my 2 front teeth. So that was a good enough reason.

I remembered that the first few days after every adjustment my teeth would be so sore. But after that I relished the feeling of having a hard time talking because of my braces. For me it was cool. I graduated from braces after 2 years and my dentist prescribed me retainers to maintain the position of my teeth. I saw that the front gap disappeared. I wore the retainers for 2-3 years and thought that my teeth were fixed.

But then I saw the gap returning and getting wider after a year. That’s what the dentist would term it a relapse. Because I didn’t want to go back to braces especially I’m older (it seemed that it’s so uncool to wear braces when you’re older and when you’re in the states), I decided that a retainer would fix the problem.

Did I mention that I’m in dental school and that we know how to make ourselves retainers (and that’s how I diagnosed myself that I needed retainers)? We had an orthodontic class and they taught us how to bend wires. I was so poor at it. Before I left for the States 2 years ago, my classmate and I jointly made my retainers. It was never finished. So now I returned, I decided to have it done outside the school by a lab technician since I didn’t have the patience and skill to bend wires. But my classmate  kindly volunteered to make my retainers. 3 months after having commissioned her to do my retainers, I was finally able to wear it. And I’m now regretting it because my teeth are so sore! ugh…

Related posts:

  1. My retainers won’t work
  2. Teeth Grinding
  3. My successful teeth whitening project