Brace Yourself

I went to the orthodontist this evening. I never had braces when I should have, when I was a teenager. I had the opportunity to have them, but when I was the right age my older brother was just finishing two years of braces and retainers and headgear. I think when the dentist told my parents that getting me braces was not ABSOLUTELY necessary, they were more than happy to skip the whole thing. Not that I minded – what teenager would say “No, mom and dad, I really WANT braces!”

Anyways, jump ahead twenty years of jaw growth (or lack of) and wisdom teeth and a worsening overbite, and when I saw the dentist last month he suggested I visit the orthodontist to see about having my bottom teeth straightened out. The fact that my bottom teeth are crooked has never bothered me much, mostly because the top teeth are fine and they hide the bottoms due to the aforementioned overbite. Except once in a while when I have been talking to a child and I’ll catch him staring into my mouth, and he’ll say “Wow, your teeth are really crooked.” But that’s only happened a few times.

So I go to the orthodontist for a consultation, to see what needs to be done. The first step was easy – lying in the chair while he poked around my mouth and called out all kinds of measurements to his assistant in secret orthodontist code. The next step was x-rays.

The first x-rays were the Panorex variety, the kind that take one sweeping landscape picture of all your teeth. I’ve had this done once before, a few years ago – but I’d forgotten how weird it is. First, you sit on what is basically a stool with a back, surrounded by this machine. The assistant says “Please rest your chin on the shelf and look straight ahead” – okay, that part’s easy. Then she pops up this plastic stick with a notch in it. “Bite the stick, please,” she says pleasantly. Okay, chin on the shelf, bite the stick, what’s next – juggle rubber balls with one hand?

The assistant continues efficiently – she moves to my right side and with a “I’m just going to move this up against your head,” pushes an unseen piece of steel up against that side of my skull. “And this side,” and she does the same thing on the left side – this time folding my ear over under the steel. I’m figuring that’s got to be it, when she moves behind me and says “You’re going to have to sit up a LITTLE straighter.” And she starts shoving the back of the stool forward, straightening out my spine to the point where I think it simulates those backboards paramedics strap accident victims to. (I’ve always slouched somewhat, but I think if my mother had had one of these contraptions, she would have said “Sit up straight!” a few thousand less times.)

Finally, the assistant is happy with my position – back straight, head clamped, chin on the shelf, stick between the teeth. Now the whole time this is going on, I am noticing the actual camera apparatus, which is about the size of a small garbage can suspended from a mechanical arm. It reminds me of the robots I’ve seen in auto assembly plants, the ones that can apply several thousand PSI of pressure to a spot the size of a dime. The ones that can crush a steel car frame like an egg if they are programmed incorrectly.

The assistant says cheerfully, “Now we’re going to take the picture – this will take about 20 seconds. You may feel the camera BRUSH AGAINST YOUR CHEEK as it rotates,” and leaves me alone in the room with the machine. At this point, I think the machine definitely has me at a disadvantage. I think of my left ear, still folded under some piece of steel, and wonder if it’s attached to the part that is now going to be propelled around by that big mechanical arm. I consider asking the assistant, but she’s gone, and besides, I have A PLASTIC STICK in my mouth.

The machine starts whirring, and the camera apparatus begins its traverse around my head. It does brush against my cheek, and thoughts of being turned into a Van Gogh look-alike change to thoughts of having my head twisted off my neck. The camera finishes its traverse, and the assistant returns to release me from the machine. No sweat.

I figure I’m done, but she directs me to the other large piece of equipment in the room, one I had studiously ignored until now. This kind of x-rays I had never had before. (continued next entry…)

Brace Yourself (part 2)

11/12/98

(continued from previous entry…)

“You’re going to have to stand up for this one,” she says, ever more cheerfully. What, with nothing to make sure my back is straight? She brings out the lead apron and puts it around my neck, covering my torso. I ‘ve always wondered if the design of these aprons means that even though they’re concerned about blasting your body with radiation, they’re not that worried about your arms and legs (and head). This time, she moves me into position underneath the machine.

As she’s turning me around, I notice that coming out of the machine is a clamp-like device, with the clamp arms ending in two wooden spikes that look a lot like sharpened chopsticks. I wonder what purpose those will serve, being that they are down at the level of my chest. Well, the last victim was obviously a child, because she raises the chopsticks-clamp up to my head. Great, I think, this time there going to restrain me by pressing wooden spikes against my temples.

The assistant maneuvers me around some more, not happy with my position relative to the chopsticks. “You’re going to have to stand up straighter,” she says (I knew THAT was coming). Finally satisfied, she proceeds to close the clamp – pressing the chopsticks INTO MY EARS. I wonder if these people ever saw the Q-Tip commercials where the guy said, “Don’t ever put anything in your ears, unless it’s your elbow.” Apparently not.

Well, I must have made a face, because the assistant asks happily, “Is that hurting you?” Hurting as in “I feel like I’m being hung on skewers like a shish kebob”, or hurting as in “I wonder how it will feel when these chopsticks pierce my eardrums?” But the assistant has moved cheerfully on to the picture taking. Luckily these pictures only take a second, like the old ones where they just shoved a piece of cardboard in your mouth, pointed the ray gun at your head, and snapped away. Once again, she releases me from the machine. My last thought as I leave the x-ray room is, “I wonder if they change those sticks in between patients?” From there, it’s back to the examination chair to have impressions made.

Now, I have a theory. I think the point of all this x-ray procedure is to make the next step seem not so awful . Everyone told me that having impressions of my teeth done was going to be the worst part, but after going through the x-rays it didn’t seem bad at all. In fact, having impressions done consisted of simply having my cheeks pulled back by some plastic clamps (reminds me of “A Clockwork Orange”, when the guys eyelids were clamped open), filling my mouth with Silly Putty, letting it set for thirty seconds, and then pulling the molds out (requiring a good deal of force and leverage applied by the orthodontist). That was a piece of cake.

The real pain comes next week, when I find out how much this is all going to cost me.