All I want is my bite back
Lara Henderson is highly conscious of her teeth. But it’s not surprising given the problems she has endured for much of her adult life. Activities which many of us take for granted, such as biting and chewing, Lara has had to carry out carefully. “If your teeth are bad,” she says, “that’s all anyone will ever notice.”
But all these anxieties have disappeared since having orthodontic treatment. She can’t believe how much better she feels. “I have a lovely smile now and my jaw has changed. Before I had a two tooth smile and now I have a six teeth smile! But the best thing was that when the braces came off, I was able to bite into an apple. It was great, really great.”
Lara’s terrible teeth were the result of disappointing treatment as a child when she had six teeth extracted. “As a result, all my teeth were slanting forward and I had lost my bite. Human beings are amazing; we adapt and compensate and that was what I was doing but I had got to the point where I realised I could not cope. For instance I have two kids and we all love pizza, but I could not bite into one.”
She continued: “I had been delaying treatment because we travel a lot and for years we were abroad; also I had never found anyone I was comfortable with. Then some parents at my children’s school who are dentists sent me to see a specialist orthodontist. I sat in his chair and I knew he was the guy.”
“He asked me what I was looking for and I told him: ‘All I want is my bite back and some longevity.’ That was the key for me because I felt my teeth were not going to last, my gums were wearing away. One of the things which worried me throughout was that I did not want a Hollywood smile. I wanted to look like me. Although what he does is incredibly aesthetically pleasing, they are not unrealistically perfect.”
Wearing braces is no picnic, she warns. “There is nothing easy about it. You just have to wear your braces with pride. You cannot go round with your hand over your mouth. You just get on with it and say ‘I have braces, lucky me’. “Now I have two sets of retainers for the uppers which I wear at night and fixed retainers on the lower.”
While the anxieties have gone away, Lara is still conscious of her teeth, but in a positive way. “I have a lovely smile, I look like me and I have a perfect bite.”
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