I Took Off All Elastics & Let Arch Wire Do Its Job

It's been five days

since I installed my the arch wire onto my ceramic brackets using .010" stainless steel wires as ligatures. I was using different size elastics to pull in certain teeth even after I installed the arch wire.

Now I have taken off all of the elastics(rubber bands). I can tell that the arch wire, ligatures and brackets are exerting some force on my teeth, but I have been impatient. I think I have prematurely tried to tighten up my ligatures and I had two brackets come off. As an experiment in re-attaching my brackets I used the standard uv cured ortho cement on one tooth and I used Loctite super glue on the other tooth. I'll let you know which one stands the test of time. The only reason I even considered using super glue in my mouth is because I've read some info about it being used in emergency home dental situations. Any ways I have decided to let the arch wire do its job by correcting the arch of my upper grill then I'll pull in the gaps with some power chain elastics.

At this point I'm just happy to feel the braces pulling out my crowded and crooked upper teeth. As far as pain goes, its not much. I only feel pain when I'm eating and some food makes it's way to my front teeth. Other than that, I'm cool. One thing I've realized throughout this process is that I haven't placed all my brackets perfectly on point. So at some point I will have to re-position some of my brackets as pointed out in the material that I studied.

I did make a tool a couple hours ago to help me place the brackets correctly.It's a homemade tool that will let me place brackets at 4mm or 4.5mm. I wish I had this tool in the beginning, I could have placed my brackets much more accurately. This is very important! Since some of my brackets are not placed perfectly on the tooth, I will have to reposition them and it's no fun. The point is if I could do it again I would make this tool first then use it to get my brackets perfect from jumpstreet. I would have ordered round niti wire also. From what I've learned so far, othodontists use round niti wire at first because it bends to the shape of crooked teeth easier than most other wires. I only have rectagular wire >016" x .022" upper wire.