My Braces Journey: The Emancipation

My entire braces journey culminates to this blog post - The EMANCIPATION. Yes! My teeth are free! Haha! Those metal braces brackets are finally removed!

The braces removal process is a pretty quick one. After rubbing some glue removal substance on your teeth and with a set of dental pliers, the orthodontist removed every metal bracket within 5 minutes.

Here's what I look like after all the cleaning, scaling and polishing...Lemme adopt the standard advertising way of reporting...by using the "before" and "after" photos :D Haha.

Before & after photos :D I'm sure you can tell which is which...haha

Amazing results isn't it? Haha. The time lapse between those two photos are almost FOUR YEARS! The "before" photo was taken during October 2010 and the "emancipated" photo was taken in May 2014!

The reason why my braces journey took so long is mainly because I went for a 6-month exchange during my university days in NTU.

I told my dentist that I'd be overseas for 6-months and he was like "WHAT?". But then he went, "Alright, I'll just do whatever I can for your last appointment in 6 months and hope for the best!"

So off I went to Shanghai for 6 months for my exchange...with a few other friends who will also miss their braces appointments for half a year. Haha.

We all came back a semester later, safe and sound, and we're all now wearing our awesomely re-arranged straight and beautiful teeth :D

So, if you were to minus those 6 months, it'd have ended in November 2013, which is slightly more than 3 years.

Yeah, a typical braces patient takes around 2-3 years before his teeth ORDs with a red commando beret. Haha. For those people who have relatively straight teeth and just want perfection, their braces days may take only up to a year.

So, the duration of your braces journey really depends on 2 factors:
1) How bad the condition of your teeth are - as bad as mine? 2 to 3 years.
2) How often you miss your braces appointments - as bad as mine? I missed 6 months worth of appointments.

The entire cost of this nearly 4 year cosmetic operation cost about $3000+...that was back in 2010 when this whole package deal was signed with National Dental Centre (NDC), inclusive of government subsidy.

Prices keep going up, so if you're gonna start on braces now (year 2014), it'll cost an average of up to $4k+

If you were to ask me was it worth it? I'd say yes. It was worth every bit of pain and agony. To walk around and smile with that neatly aligned set of teeth is priceless and it is a boost to your self-esteem.

Not like I had low self-esteem issues before my teeth were straight, but somehow, when you know your teeth are not that pretty, you'll tend not to smile that wide, especially for photos. It's like how you'll want to wear a cap to cover your hair after a bad haircut kinda thing?

On hindsight, I think my whole braces journey was also FUN. Haha! Why? Because there are thousands of others who are going through this phase too! You'll make tons of mutual braces friends! LOL!

Braces really make for good conversations too. Talking about how food will get stuck, how we wear rubber bands in our mouth, how we use inter-dental toothbrushes and how our teeth colour (braces band colour) changes every month will really interest the non-braces peeps. Haha.

I still remember how I requested having red and green colour for my braces bands during Christmas period! HAHA! And yes, my request was granted! LOL! So I got Christmas in my mouth! LOL LOL!

The best part about braces? It makes you look young! HAHA! Some of my girl friends even say my braces make me look cuter. LOL! Which is actually a sad thing...because...I'm not as cute now :( Sobs...HAHA.

Yup, braces has its charm too guys. Haha.

But yes, the initial stages will definitely be painful. The cuts in your tongue, the painful tension that cuts across your teeth, the food stuck in all the unreachable areas, etc...But hey, look at my teeth now :D All neat and ready to mingle...HAHA!

I mean, come on...Mankind has invented a solution for crooked teeth and you're not taking it? Haha. #YOLO.

All in all, my entire braces journey was a worthwhile one. The conversation it makes and the charm it brings was worth the pain. And looking at the end results, I can only say "shut up and take my money!" Haha.

#BracesFTW