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Life with braces isn't so bad

Steph Parsons shows off her new braces. Photo by Shayla Towner.

COLUMN
By Steph Parsons
fhspress.com Staff
Posted December 17, 2013

Well, my experience with braces didn't start out so well.

So most of my friends have braces and they tell me horror stories about them. One friend tells me they hurt all the time and another said that it hurts really badly for the first two weeks then hurts a little for the rest of the time. As if that didn't scare me enough, I got braces five days before my birthday. I was like "Wow, I have a birthday present for eighteen months! Not."

I was told, by some random person, it's an hour-long treatment and I would need a drill, so that freaked me out even more.

So the day of the appointment had slowly come up and I was not ready. The whole appointment went smoothly, even though I was freaking out the whole time. I started out almost jumping out of my seat but half way through I was fine.

What they did was one of the assistants came in and made a mold of my teeth with this really nasty tasting jelly. That was for them to figure out where the brackets would go on my teeth. After that they just did a little bit of prepping for the actual braces. By then the orthodontist has now come in to start working with me.

What they do is they dry my mouth out to make sure the glue will stick to my teeth. They put glue on my teeth and then the brackets are on there. It takes about 40 minutes for that process and it doesn't really hurt at that point.

So that was over and I got told of what I can and cannot eat. I am very sad to say that I cannot have popcorn. I absolutely love popcorn and I eat it anyway. "You cannot take my popcorn away!" is what I say a lot now.

People told me it takes two weeks to stop hurting, but for me it took four days. My cheeks still hurt because they have not gotten used to the braces yet but then again I have only had them for two weeks. I still can't have anything hard so that means a lot of ice cream and yogurt. Yay!

I also have to have my braces tightened every two months so yay more pain.

My life with braces hasn't been all that bad. Even though through all the pain I know why they put them on me and that's because of my smile. It wasn't the greatest but now I know it will be.

steph.parsons@fhspress.com

FOOTHILL HIGH SCHOOL fhspress.com SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA