2 years later...

As a 'congratulations on your new smile' I was given a little gift of a box of cupcakes from the orthodontist.

...and my braces are off!

I felt a bit like Chandler in Friends attempting a decent smiley pic!

I was meant to have braces as a kid, and even went for an initial appointment but as I wasn't keen on the dentist and I sort of envisioned it being painful, I never followed it up. 

Now I am no longer nervous about the dentist after having a couple of wisdom teeth out, so I very much wanted to get my teeth sorted. It was a long (and expensive) journey, but very much worth it.

Before (this is about 5 yrs ago), didn't have anything more recent and my ortho pic is horrid! Boy, my eyebrows are thin here!

During - At an Edward Bess Zuneta event last year. Total hair envy here - EB is gorgeous!

I had the visible train track style Damon braces because the adjustments I needed couldn't be achieved with a system like Invisalign. There is an invisible option called Incognito that I could have chosen but that costs a lot more. Within the first month I saw a huge difference and the teeth straightened out fairly quickly. I have had a tooth on each side from the top taken out as I had an overbite of around 8 mm and this is the part which prolonged treatment as it took a long time to close the gap.

I was surprised with the whiteness of my teeth when the braces came off because I was thinking of getting a whitening treatment after, but I think I'll see what I can achieve at home with a whitening toothpaste and the polishing brush head on my Oral B Triumph 5000 toothbrush that I purchased earlier this year. I am looking forward to giving this a proper use as I've been using the orthocare brush heads.

Boy, does it feel good to have these off!