No More Braces For Our Eight Year Old (For Now)

This past month marked a pretty big rite of passage for our eight year old… He got his braces off! For those of you that aren’t keeping track, we initiated early orthodontic intervention last January to combat an increasingly worrisome underbite.

We initially took a ‘wait-and-see’ approach, but things definitely weren’t getting any better. Thus, we set aside the necessary funds in our Flexible Spending Account (FSA) and then took the bull by the horns right after the first of the year.

In all respects, our son did great. He hardly complained, willingly avoided all the ‘banned’ (but yummy) foods that could’ve damaged his braces, and he really rose to challenge when it came to keeping his teeth clean. The only two hiccups in the entire process were:

(1) An unfortunate armpit fart that resulted in a bracket popping off one of his teeth, and

(2) A rogue tortilla chip that broke his quad helix (the springy palate-expander thing) on the eve of our interstate move.

This entire process was almost certainly made easier for him by the fact that I was wearing braces at the same time. Fortunately, I got mine off over the summer, as well. But I digress…

Perhaps the most surprising thing for us is how quickly his problem was corrected — he was in braces for about seven months, and probably could’ve come out of them a bit sooner. As it turns out, he’ll be wearing a retainer for the forseeable future, and it’s just a matter of time before he’s back in braces — this was only partial treatment aimed at correcting his jaw growth, so it didn’t do much with regard to prettying-up his teeth. In fact, he still needs to a lose a number of baby teeth before he’ll be ready for full treatment.

See also:
- Braces for an Eight Year Old
- Braces for an Eight Year Old, Update
- Orthodontia and Armpit Farts
- Braces for an Eight Year Old, Update #2
- Braces for an Eight Year Old, Update #3