MY BRACES STORY #5: Laser Gum & Changes

Click to read more: (Part #1) (Part #2) (Part#3) (Part#4) (Part#5) (Part#6)

Hello Sweeties♥ Thanks for all the lovely messages. Yes, finally the part#5 update about my braces story. I just came back from my dental clinic and did the laser this morning. I put on my braces on year 2015 and now it's officially 2 years+. I guess it's time to do a little update on the changes on my teeth profile and my laser experience.

To kickstart this, please get ready with your popcorn and be surprise with the amount of changes after two year of wearing braces! HAHAHAHA It might be interesting than the ghost movie lol. So let's see the before & after 2 years of wearing the damon braces and some summary of my braces story too. 

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|  Summary of my 2 years braces experience / process  | 

So for your information, you are welcome to read back all my part#1-#4 story if you feel like you want to know more of it. If not then you can straight read this post because it's the summarise of everything I had done after 2 years of wearing the damon braces. I wanna make sure everything was clear so that I won't receive comment like 'why you want to put the screws on your gum, why you need to laser your gum and blablablabla~'

It's not easy to go through all of these but it's definitely worth it. People put on braces , extracted their teeth and no more scary story after that but for me, each month I stick to the appointment nicely and visit my dental clinic punctually because I'm quite nervous and wanted to make sure everything is good. lol 

The reason behind was before I put on the braces, I'm having an overbite and gummy smile problem. Overbites is caused by hereditary or genetics that are part of the natural eruption of teeth. 

What's overbite? A deep overbite is a malocclusion that is recognized by an excessive degree of overlap of the upper and lower teeth.

Complicated? Let me show you the photo I took two years ago.

So this is the example of healthy teeth profile and overbite teeth. You can easily know that from the side of my face of from the front. My lower teeth all covered by my upper teeth because my upper teeth is really outward than the usual one.

 People tend to call this 暴牙 which the photo indicate the problem of my upper teeth.

When an overbite is deep, the patient’s chin generally is recessive or pushed back by the upper teeth towards the jaw joint. It's why before I go for braces, my face look like short round shape.

So the whole process was started with the extraction of 4 teeth. 

1. After that my teeth move toward each other and fill up the empty space of my extracted teeth. 
2. A year later, my dentist put on 4 mini screws on my upper gum and you could refer to my part #3 post for detail explanation. 
3. After half year of having the scary screws on my upper gum, I removed it and just go through few final stage of my adjustment and wire.
4. Today, I made it! I gone through the whole process of laser and I did laser on my gum to reduce 2-3mm gum so I can get back my normal teeth's size (upper teeth) and lesser gummy smile.

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|  Changes of my facial profile  | 

Dr.Neoh told me that after the corrected my overbite problem my face can look longer and not more 'round' shape face. At first I thought it might be impossible or I guess it's not much changes but after 2 years of having the braces, all my friend told me that I look so different. Even sometime people still thought that I did some plastic surgery or chin enhancement lol xD I'm quite happy but I didn't do any aesthetic treatment/ plastic surgery on my face except my double eyelid stitching which I did 3 years ago (click here to read more about my double eyelid story).

After corrected my overbite problem, it really can improve the shape of the my face. Overbites cause my face to look short and the chins to look small like the photo below:

Also it's hard to close my mouth because there is always a gap between my upper and lower lips. Plus, I really hate all the photo taken from the side of my face because I look so fat from the side since my chin look so short and face look super round on the side.

As you can see the diff between my before and after photo.  Now you can really know the reason why overbites cause the facial profiles to have the appearance of a recessive chin and my face tend to have short round faces typical of an older person. I'm not confident in the past because I always get scolded with something that I thought I couldn't change. If you know the hair shooting incident which I did blog about it before on my blog (click here).

I feel that now, braces actually improved my facial appearance and I feel much confident with myself. After the overbite correction, my chin looks larger, even look sharper by looking all the photo I taken recently! 

  Left (Before) & Right (After 2 years of wearing braces)

   Left (Before): Overbite pushes the chin backwards toward neck so it makes my face look short and round.

Right (After 2 years of wearing braces): Face profile changed, longer chin and no more round face.

 A huge change on my upper teeth too!

So that's about the 2 years changes on my face and it's something that i wish to share with you guys. Also, not everyone can have such huge changes because not everyone have overbite problems. So it's better to consult the dentist and do some research before going through anything. Now, let's talk about the laser experience which I just did one hour ago lol.

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|  Laser Gum experience  | 

Since it's not the first time you heard of this from my insta stories.. lol Now you know how long I drag on this but finally I made it today! Yes, without any further redo there are only one word I can describe my feeling right now.

Yes,

BBQ!

Not about eating the BBQ chickens or what but the whole process I just smells like a BBQ lol. It's unexpected because the whole procedure is around 1 hour including the injection of anesthetic麻醉药. Doctor inject twice on my upper teeth and that's all. The pain is only happen during the injection and it takes about 10-15 mins. I keep shaking my leg because I really dont like the feeling during the injection.  #前世欠了麻醉针人情 今世一直很怕

I guess that's the only pain you have to go through because after the Anesthetic injection. You can't feel anything. It's numb and you can't feel your lips at all. After that, it's the laser time which I always thought it was scary but it's not. No feeling at all but the only scary thing was my brain keep on thinking or imagine how scary it is -.- wth If after awhile you feel a little painful, you can always tell the doctor so he can inject one more time for you. 

Then just within 30 seconds, you can smells something like BBQ ! lol The scent of roasted meat like you are eating Korean BBQ. #烧肉烧味 So that's about the smells of BBQ. The rest of the 30 mins my dentist just ask me to stay calm, don't hit him HAHAHAHAHA! But at the same time feeling so hungry because it really smells like a korean bbq lol.

My dentist might be afraid of me because I keep roll my eyeball like this and totally face palm expression after knowing the scent of BBQ is actually came from the laser on my gum. But it's good because I MADE IT!! OMG I never thought I can go through all of these alone and I'm a brave baby girl. Smelly must be proud of me. I love myself now. I'm going to smile like a superstar after I take off my braces.

Day 1: After laser my gum

So here's the comparison of my before and after laser. The yellow bracket indicate the cut off point and basically it take off 2-3mm of my gum so my overall teeth can get back to the normal one. The reason why because after i put on the screw on my upper gum, my whole upper teeth move upward and it (at the same time) shorten my whole upper teeth. So it's a must for me to laser away 2-3mm in order to get it back.

Closer look at the burn marks (after laser) 

Dr.Neoh told me not to worry because it will recover on its own. Nothing much scary and no bleeding like hell too. Just bleed a little bit during the process of laser and after that my gum look like the photo above. So in the conclusion, it's not that scary except I really dislike the injection of Anesthetic. I hate it!!!

Now I have to use the mouth rinse once every morning within this few days and my dentist know i'm always afraid of pain so he gave me some pain killer which I totally no need to take it because it's now 2 hours after the Anesthetic. My dentist also told me that only able to eat soft food for first few days because the gum still take time to recover and must eat cold food / ice cream. Cant eat hot food because it will make the gum bleeding and everything must serve in cold temperature. I didn't feel any pain at all just some discomfort after the laser because it's numb and stiff.

Update* 8 hours after the laser. I didn't feel any pain but I really want to eat some meat lol. Can't control myself not to eat that. So I just eat it and now my gum start bleeding like hell -.- Lesson learned, I can only take soft food for the first few day even I didn't feel any pain on it. Guess now my gum is really sensitive. That's why T.T I need ice cream!! T.T

So I guess that's all about my laser experience. Please give me a big hug. OMG New milestone on my braces journey. I'm happy and can sleep nicely tonight! That's all for today and I'm now waiting my gum to recover! Thanks for reading my blog. See you on my next post. Love, xoxo. Happy go lucky!

Click to read more: (Part #1) (Part #2) (Part#3) (Part#4) (Part#5) (Part#6)