Open Up!

We always knew some of our kids would need braces.  We both brought teeth problems to the marriage; him with crooked teeth and four missing, me with crooked teeth, tiny upper pallet, and TMJ-- it was inevitable that at least one out of five would need braces.  As it turns out, three of the five need them, and they're all the male children.  So far none of them have teeth that are missing, but Brennon and Tyson inherited my tiny upper pallet, so when they suggested this retainer...

I wasn't all that surprised.  While mine was a removable plastic one that filled the entire roof of my mouth, Brennon's (and Tyson's to follow in between 6 months to a year) will be cemented in for a few weeks.  There will be a tiny "key" that I'll fit into that center square once a week and rotate backwards, which will separate the retainer, effectively opening up the pallet, creating a more uniform "u" shape, instead of the "v" shape he has now.

He'll also have brackets placed on the front four teeth, pulling the front two together, with the other two following suit, opening up adequate space for the canine teeth to come in without a problem, hopefully guiding all teeth to correct their crookedness and crowding.  I'm not quite sure how long he'll have the separation retainer, but he'll have the brackets for at least a year.  One they're removed, we'll have a wait period as his mouth continues to grow with maturity, coming back after a certain amount of time to see if he'll need Phase 2 braces.  Caden only needed Phase 1, but he never needed the retainer, so we'll see how it goes for Brennon.  And because no child likes to do everything the same, Tyson's Phase 1 will probably be quite different from Brennon's, which was quite different from Caden's-- cause we like challenges in this house apparently.

It all begins on Thursday.  He'll hate it now, but appreciate it so much when he's older.  It feels good to finally be starting, since we've been waiting for this for almost two years.