Wow! Time has flown and I'm 7 months in and just had what I think is adjustment 8 (i'm losing count!) I really need to post photos on here as my teeth have changed a lot and I have hooked wires to pull my over bite back and the forsus spring on my left side. Hopefully now my semester's over i'll have time to take and post pics. So here's some updates...
The Good: The ortho told me today that my cross bite is fixed. He had told me initially that as an adult they could try and fix this but it likely wouldn't happen. Well it has happened so that's great! Also I'm kind of used to the forsus now and they still haven't needed to put it on the right side. I'll be glad when its gone as it bulges my left cheek a little (makes me look mean lol!) Also my teeth don't touch on that side but its not anywhere near as painful as it looks.
The Bad: the forsus and the current wires are changing my arches which is intended, but a side effect is that its making my lower teeth bow out and they're all uneven and not coming together as well as he would like. The ortho said its all fixable later with elastics, just means more work ahead.
Also told him how last week for several days one of my teeth was kindof popping/cracking... He said he hadn't heard of that before?!? Though i'd heard of it on the metal mouth forum, but didn't tell him that. I then explained it as feeling movement whenever I moved my mouth and he said that's normal. But wow it was the most annoying thing ever, not painful just creepy like the tooth was moving in its socket everytime I breathed. Thank goodness for archwired and others reporting similar. Especially as the ortho didn't seem to get what I was talking about. Though he checked the tooth, its not loose and all looks fine.
I finally got the courage to ask about root resorption as I can see what i think are the lower front teeth roots (though maybe its bone?) and they look like they're getting shorter. The reason I'm paranoid about this is that a family member told me of someone (an adult) she worked with who had root resorption from braces and lost a tooth and had to get an implant. I wish she had never told me this story as I am terrified this will happen to me. I can't imagine anything worse after all this pain, extractions, annoyance of not being able to eat hard foods and expense to lose teeth... Especially as I have had 8 healthy teeth removed for braces (wisdom and pre molars). The ortho said the only way to check is by xray. He said they do periodic xrays and that they don't usually check at my stage, but since I'm an adult its probably good too as it is a risk, so they'll do a panoramic xray next time. I really hope all looks good and I don't have that root resorption horror story. My ortho was prob. wondering why he takes adult patients with all my questions, concerns. I didn't tell him the story I was told, just that I read too much! Oh well better to be safe than sorry.
The Ugly: When explaining how my crossbite is fixed the ortho pulled up a photo of my teeth before. The camera made my teeth look soooo yellow and the bite photo showed my upper teeth almost fully covering my lowers. It looked a prisoner's teeth or something... Horrific! But I guess those aren't my teeth anymore!
Really hope that thsi is all worth it...
