An Orthodontic Consult

At her last cleaning, Olivia’s dentist recommended that Olivia see our orthodontist for her initial consult. She still has a lot of baby teeth (yeah, you’re welcome girls, for my dental genetics that means you lose your baby teeth WAY the hell after everyone else your age, sorry.)

Tom was kind enough to drive the girls into town to meet me at the orthodontist’s office. I’d already filled out forms and provided insurance information the day I scheduled the appointment.

This appointment was about pictures and x-rays and talking about what we were seeing in the pictures and x-rays.

At the beginning of the appointment, I told the consultant that we really didn’t want to start any kind of procedures on Olivia for at least a year. First of all, like I said, she has a lot of baby teeth that have yet to fall out. We also want to pay for it all up front and so, well, yeah, we need to save up for that price tag.

So there we were, looking at pictures of Olivia’s mouth.

The orthodontist came in and sat down with us. He showed me how Olivia’s teeth meet in the back and how her front teeth do not meet. Let’s remember that this child sucked her thumb until she was almost five, so yeah, there’s a bit of an overbite. What are you going to do? Oh, that’s right, put braces on those things in a year or so.

He said he’s not so much worried about the bite, we can correct that in time. But he is a bit worried about soft-tissue damaged when her bottom teeth come up against the gums at the back of her top teeth.

He also recommended a mouth guard for whenever Olivia will be participating in any sort of athletic events. I managed not to laugh at that one. He explained that with her two front teeth being a bit farther out than her other teeth, she could damage them pretty easily with a fall or being bumped by someone.

We took the mouth guard he offered but I did assure him that she’s not at all interested in any sort of sport that would put her in contact with other people.

The doctor did agree that we should wait at least six months before doing anything at all as far as orthodontics go. He wants to see how many of those baby teeth she can lose on her own before we have to do what we did to Alyssa and go in take some of those suckers out ourselves (or, you know, have a licensed dentist do it…)

So here we are; the same place we were yesterday before the appointment. Except, yay, Olivia got some free chap stick out of the deal. That’s always a bonus for her.