Monday, May 18, 2009

Mango's Journey To Braces Part 2

This morning Mango had another visit to the orthodontist, where they placed her sutural expander. It is glued to her back teeth, and I will need to "crank" it once a day, using a special little tool, to slowly expand the width of her mouth. If you look very closely at the picture below, you will see the tiny hole between the arrows where the little tool goes. We did the first turn today at the orthodontist so they made sure I knew how, and Mango said she felt some pushing on her teeth. They assured her that this was normal, shouldn't actually ever hurt, and should only last about 15 minutes each day. She said the glue tasted horrible, but is very happy they will let her eat fruit snacks again! (She couldn't when the spacers were in before.)
Lunch was an adventure as food gets caught between the expander and the roof of her mouth, making this already very slow eater even slower, as she'd try to clear it out between every bite.
But our happy little darling is adjusting to her new mouthware, and is still as smiley and giggley as ever....which is just how we like her!

1 comment:

Debbie said...

Ugh...I remember when Bessie had hers. It did hurt her the first few times...just as a warning. I often commented on how we paid all this money to torture our child. Hope she has little discomfort.