Essay By by Miss Pavitra Sampat

Orthodontic patients at the Center for Advanced Dentistry

The first time I saw my friend, who was an established “queen bee” with the most beautiful smile with an all of a sudden extra shiny smile.!!

She had metal scaffolding running up and down her teeth like a dilapidated building being held up by those crisscross of wires and metal shafts!!

I just couldn’t hold myself back and just had to ask amidst all the gasps and stares, what happened!!!

Her immediate response was – “I got braces!!” With an ever so shiny, and proud grin!!

I just couldn’t fathom why those painful looking “things” in her mouth could possibly bring her so much joy! But as days went by it was brought to my understanding, braces were the all new “in” thing!  All the cool and happening kids had them, although it was a fairly uncomfortable initial experience, but that’s a small price to pay for a school career of  being cool!!

This was absolutely not my motivation, as I was the pee wee of the class, books and my daily lunch were my best friends and constant companions.

Having metal in my mouth in no way seemed like an attractive idea to me, though all around me, metal mouthed children and their tubelight grins started to pop up!!

The girls as well as the boys loo’s seemed to be teeming with them trying to keep it shinier than the other and a very common site was comparisons of whose braces  colours were more attractive.

Getting sucked into that sea was no where my plan.

Until that fateful day when my mother, for no imaginable reason to me, told me that we were going to visit the “orthodontist”

Orthodontist!!! I’d only heard of dentists… what exactly could an orthodontist do that our friendly neighbourhood dentist couldn’t ?!

I immediately fed my monster of questions…..discovering that, an orthodonist was a doctor specializing in “braces!!!”

The morning of our appointment, I spent an extra 10 minutes in the bathroom, brushing and trying in vain to straighten my oh so crooked teeth!!

After a few minutes of constant brushing I thought they looked quite straight!

As I entered the “orthodontists” office, I saw all the equipment….It all seemed quite like the regular dentists office, and he seemed like a nice man.  I lay my palpitating heart to rest and sent it back from my throat to its original position.

He very sweetly asked me to show him, what I thought was a very well kept set of teeth, proudly opened my mouth and lay there, in wait…for him to tell my mother that all was well, after a few minutes of agonizing patience heard those fateful words, “yes I do feel she should get braces”

First I almost jumped out of that chair, ready to sprint as fast as my feet would carry me, but as I was lying there with my mouth at his mercy, held down with no where to run, my only escape was to space out.

My first appointment brought such bad news….what would the rest bring! I thought!! But to my satisfaction, I just had to get an X-ray, after that he took an impression of my teeth, not as painful as expected..  Then came the day when he put in two bands and my brackets, not so bad either…. School was a completely different story though.

After the brackets came the wires and I got to choose the colour of  bands put on my wire ridden mouth, as I was bombarded with an array of colours, my mind just couldn’t decide between the copper and blue.. As I was trying to make, what seemed to be my lives most difficult choice, the doctor came in and decided that we’d do a little art work on my teeth….he coloured my braces like a pro. I had blue, copper, red, yellow and green, beautifying my teeth, like the colours of a painting!!

I was pretty impressed with an experience I thought would be quite a painful one.

At school I was unwillingly pulled into the “hip” crowd and compared my colours with theirs, I must admit it was not so bad being popular..

I started getting used to the metal in my mouth, the preliminary discomfort in eating certain food wore off and I started eating exactly what my heart desired.

Thereafter it was just a nip here and a tuck there.  The only down side was my restriction on eating chocolates which was quite a blow to my extremely large sweet tooth!!

Every month I would visit my “orthodontist”, and I must admit I started to like him better than my neighbourhood dentist, no painful drilling and fillings!!!  Every month would come and go, and as time passed I started feeling proud of my teeth, that now seemed to be getting tamed, in shape and forming a perfect arc, like a battallion of soldiers in a drill!!!

After a year of having my teeth being pushed and shoved I started getting impatient and wanted my teeth to stop being an in built flash light..  Though my doctor told me it would be a surprise for me, one and a half years down the line and I just want the off!!!  More for the excitement of seeing how they looked, the actual picture of my teeth was like a shrouded mystery, the existing climax of an amazing book!

At the end of the day, I do feel that all the mornings spent vigorously brushing, gargling my mouth and the three time a day regimen of brushing my teeth, ultimately payed off, not only did I learn to keep my braces clean, but the all round health of my gums and teeth also improved greatly.

The whole experience was not as dreaded as I expected it to be….

As I learned, in the end it does pay off to brace your teeth, a well meshed set of teeth go a long way in having a healthy and sumptuous young as well as old age.

So what say?? Let’s all go STRAIGHT??