Rebecca works at Crystal Dental Care. This is what happened when she decided to get dental braces. In her own words:
20 December
I have always been unhappy with my smile but I was deemed not suitable for NHS orthodontics. Rules are much stricter nowadays.
I have seen so many people getting great results with cosmetic braces so I asked Dr Murphy to consider fitting Six Month Smiles for me. He was very helpful and agreed to get them on during my lunchtime. Hey presto, 3 hours later I have braces.
They look amazing. I went out with friends that night and no one noticed! I had to ask them what they thought. Feedback was very good. I took some ibuprofen before bed to ease the soreness, but slept fine. Bit achy in the morning so took another tablet and feel fine again.
A day later and I can see that my teeth have moved slightly within 24 hours. Amazing. And no drills or injections, my kind of dentistry.
3 January
The first couple of days were a bit sore but nothing a few ibuprofen wouldn’t sort. I just took a Nurofen after meals and I was fine on day three. The big surprise was that absolutely no one noticed I had cosmetic braces on until I mentioned it to them. I was a little bit disappointed because I was expecting a bit more attention!
My teeth weren’t too bad to begin with really. I just had that one lower tooth that was sticking out. The difficulty is that all of the front teeth have to be shuffled around to squeeze it back in so braces are the best option.
I’ve seen Dr Murphy doing hundreds of these cases since I joined the practice a few years ago and the results speak for themselves. The patient reviews have been very good. I’ve already seen a lot of movement and he reckons we will be looking at braces off at around the four month mark.
My only mistake was booking the appointment the week before Christmas. Mum and dad had already organised Christmas dinner at our favourite local Chinese restaurant. A prawn cracker dislodged one of the brackets at the back. Because it was a back tooth it didn’t make much difference and Dr Murphy squeezed me in at lunch to pop a new one on.
“No more prawn crackers” was the strict instruction as I finished today’s appointment. Basically he replaced all the tiny elastic bands with nice, new clear ones. They tend to go a bit yellow with certain foods, including Chinese and Indian meals, interestingly.
I was told that I should know better of course!