You might have noticed at some of the photos, that Emilka wore braces.

Well, she did wear braces – but not any more!

When still living in the UK, the third tooth on the left grew in front of the other two, overlapping each other, so we took her to the orthodontist and waited for their decision. They first proposed pulling out two teeth from the bottom and two teeth from the top to solve the “crowded teeth”. However, the day I had her dentist’s appointment I “chickened out” and we cancelled the appointment asking for a second reconsideration from the orthodontist.  Why should she lose 4 teeth to have a space for one tooth? So I made a “scene” with the orthodontist (probably Emilka have a note in her notes “Hysterical mother”) and at my request, the doctor allowed her to give her braces without taking any teeth out first.

She had her braces fitted one day in November 2018 with a plan to have them for a year and a half. She was ok that day after the procedure, still able to eat.  Steve’s brother and my mother were with us, so we treated them to their favoirite pizza for dinner. The second third days were worse. She cried, she could not eat, her whole mouth was sore despite painkillers. She was not able to bite at all, so she only ate creamed soups and soft raspberries. Despite all that pain, she went to school every day. It calmed down within a few days and she got used to them, even though brushing her teeth was still a chore for her.

Every 3 months we went for checkup, to change the wire with rubber bands, and she could choose a different colour each time. First, she had dark purple, then purple and blue and then pink and blue, which gave her a little confidence to wear them even though some children laughed at her. We were buying new toothbrushes frequently, trying to take good care of her teeth, and we slowly saw the tooth going back to where it should have been in a first place – unbelievable!

Knowing we were going to Sri Lanka, at the last check we asked for a copy of Emilka’s notes to be given to us, so we could convey the plan of care whilst abroad.   In Colombo, we found an orthodontist; an elderly lady in a very outdated (post war looking) surgery, only the chair was new. We saw her a few times for checkups, she changed wires and rubber bands three times with the plans to take her braces off in February 2020. Emilka was so excited.  It was at the time when her English grandmother and grandfather were with us, so we have some photos with them with her teeth with no braces.  She suffered a lot when they made imprints of her upper teeth to make retainers, which she should wear 24/7.  The lower retainers are made of foil and are very conspicuous and should only be worn at night.

The older and more the mature she gets, the more precisely she takes care of her teeth and wears both braces all night, but she does not want to wear it during the day. Now that we are at home, we try to encourage her to wear them when she is not going out.

We will see what happens if her beautiful smile with straight teeth stay like that forever.

Rennie