“Why do you need braces?” my dad asked me when he found out I was getting braces. “Your teeth look perfectly fine,” and I totally agreed with him.  I didn’t realize that having a few slightly crooked teeth would result into getting braces until my dentist mentioned to me that those barely crooked teeth aren’t supposed to be able to touch the roof of my mouth. Some people freak out when I tell them that my bottom teeth could touch the roof of my mouth, but I didn’t know that it wasn’t normal to be able to do that. On the plus side, braces help smiles bigger and straighter. Getting braces was probably the best and worst event of my life. 

Braces came into my life and attached themselves onto my teeth on October 31st, also know as Halloween. First, Halloween is probably the worst day to get braces because someone literally asked me, “How do your braces for your costume look so real?” That’s the most depressing compliment I had ever received for many reasons: I wasn’t wearing a costume that day. I looked like a train-wreck, and I already hated my braces with a burning passion. Also, I wasn’t able to eat candy later that day because my teeth were too sore to even handle bread.  Braces were my own special trick or treat that day, but they weren’t much of a treat though.

The morning I had my appointment I didn’t want to go at all. I was nervous and scared, and I really didn’t want strangers shoving their hands and grotesque tools in my mouth. When I arrived, I thought to myself,  ‘Can I leave now?’ I had been dreading this day for months. 

A hygienist told me, “Make yourself comfortable,” and directed me to sit in a fancy leather chair with an armrest.  She started laying out tools, and they all freaked me out. “I am going to size these around your molars,” the hygienist explained to me as she picked up a round metal cap. I nodded my head and thought to myself, ‘Stop telling me what you’re doing and just do it so I can leave!’

Reaching her thumb into my mouth, she placed the cap on my molar and started to push down. She kept pushing her thumb down, but the cap wouldn’t budge. Then, unfortunately, her thumb slipped along with the metal cap and cut my gum. I shrieked so loudly that even dead people could probably hear it. As tears started rolling down my eyes, I asked myself again, ‘Can I leave now?’ After that fiasco, she proceeded to put on the caps. When she was finished the orthodontist came over and starting placing a bracket onto each one of my teeth. He then finished me off inserting the wires and ties on the brackets. 

After my braces were on, I found wire changes are the most horrifying part of it all. I thought the raggedy brackets cutting my gums would be the worst, but I was wrong. Because they are so uncomfortable, I always want to rip my teeth out of my sore, red gums to relieve the pain of those pesky wires. Every six weeks I have to go back to the orthodontist, and if I’m unlucky enough, I get a new wire for my teeth. With each wire change adds more pressure on my teeth and makes eating difficult. The tools they use to insert the new wires always leave me with metal-breath and yellow teeth. But as my teeth straightened, the less they were in pain from the wire changes. I like being able to pick what color ties I want to be on my braces. The first time I choose dark blue, but they made me look like I had bugs in my teeth. Now, I always chose lavender every time I go to an appointment. 

I always remember to insert my rubber bands in when I need them. With a horrendous overbite like mine, however, rubber bands can’t fix that by themselves. Springs, or forceps as the orthodontists call them, are little metallic-colored, jagged, contraptions held up by a metal rod to realign an overbite. They make eating, brushing, and yawning difficult. When I had them, they stuck out of my cheeks like walnuts in a squirrel’s mouth. The springs were always in the way when I was eating, and I could never yawn without them popping off the rod inside my mouth. Opening and closing my mouth, I could hear them make a crunch sound. They sprang out of my mouth all the time and had to reattach them to the rod. One time I was at a concert of my favorite artist, and they sprung off. When they sprung off, I attached them back to the rod, but one of them was bent; so I couldn’t close my mouth properly. I had to leave them hanging out of my mouth the entire concert, and I was angry because of all times it could have broken it would be at a concert. Although having them was absolutely terrible, my springs stabilized my atrocious overbite, and the whites of my bottom teeth can be seen.

There are many downsides to having braces, but my teeth look better than I thought they would. I still have braces on, and I hope I get them off soon. Braces are a curse and a blessing because they put me through so much pain. I’m glad to know that I’m not the only person going through this long and painful journey. Everyone that I know that has had braces before told me that it’s all worth it in the end and to hang tight. I’m excited to see myself without braces when they are finally off, and I know I will be much more confident as well.