3 Lessons I Learnt From Having Braces!

 

1. Expectation is everything!
   Everytime a friend or family member has asked how long I'm having braces for and I tell them it's 6 months they all say “Oh that’s alright then, that's not very long is it.”. Yet when we tell clients we can significantly reduce decades of back pain is 4 months that can sometimes be longer than they were expecting. The only difference between “oh that's quick” and “hmmm that's a long time” is the expectation the client has prior to the information. Society has been conditioned to know braces can take years to move your teeth millimetres. Yet resolving decades of back pain should only take a few weeks or a magic pill or exercise. 

 

2. Things can get worse before they get better.

There’s only one word for this “Ouch”. Having your teeth forcibly pulled in your mouth and moved bloody hurts. But guess what, after 6 months they will be perfect. In order to improve them I first must put up with not being able to use an electric toothbrush because the vibration hurts my teeth too much. Only being able to eat soup for a week because my teeth can't touch each other. A process isn't always linear. The 2 weeks of “improving my teeth” have been more painful than any other period in my life. Resolving back, shoulder or knee pain is no different. Sometimes aches and pains increase or move in the short term to improve significantly in the longer term.

 

3. £60 an adjustment is not expensive. 

This isn't me complaining. Something costs as much as it costs and if you don't value it that much then don’t have it done. That's fine. But occasionally we hear comments like “£60 for 10 minutes is quite expensive isn't it”. My new answer is “It costs me £450 to get my braces adjusted once per month which takes 20 minutes”. Now i aren't bothered about the cost to time ratio because im not paying for the dentist’s time i’m paying to have perfect teeth, in fact the shorter period of time i spend in that chair with his hands in my mouth the better quite frankly. If you are paying for a service you are paying for the desired outcome, not the service provider's time that day.