"Bracie" Part II- The Good Part

Maddy's journey with her palate expander (nicknamed "Bracie") is coming to an end! As of yesterday afternoon, we are officially done turning it! We turned that sucker as far as it could possibly be turned. Like so far, it stopped turning. Couldn't possibly go any farther. She was SO excited to finally get that news at the dentist yesterday. The dentist is extremely pleased with the job it has done. It has successfully corrected her crossbite and fixed her jaw shift. You can see the difference here. Pretty amazing how quickly that thing worked.
If you look closely in the top picture you can see how narrow her upper jaw was and how she shifted her teeth to the right to line at least one side causing her jaw to shift to the left. Now when she bites down, her teeth and jaw line up perfect. If you notice that she can't literally touch her teeth together it's because she has a bonded expander (as opposed to a banded one) that is bonded to her back teeth with acrylic. Once the expander is out, she will obviously be able to bite down all the way. You may also have noticed the nice, large gap in her front teeth. That will close in soon and be ultimately fixed with braces later on. Her poor little mouth has gotten so big (he purposefully over expanded it because things will "settle in" when he removes it). But her sweet face looks like it actually has some meat to it and it has made her mouth so big it's hard for her to smile around the expander because her cheeks just won't stretch anymore. Here is a better look at the lovely-ness to better understand just why her cheeks are so stretched out (scroll down quick if you have a weak stomach)
Now does that not look uncomfortable or what?! Bless her heart. She has never complained about it. She has gotten so used to it that when it has broken away from her teeth a few times and we have had to go in to have it re-cemented on, when the dentist takes it all the way off to clean it out, she said it feels really weird not to have it in.

Right now, we are just happy that these lovely tools no longer have to be shoved in her mouth each day to crank her poor jaw apart! Along with a big celebration, there may be a burial service for the "keys" and expander when it comes out. :)

So, now she is in part II of the expander's job. To sit in her mouth and acts as a retainer, allowing the bone to start forming in it's new position. At the beginning of August, he will take it out for good and put in a "real" (and much smaller) retainer that will stay in for awhile. I bet her mouth will feel so big and roomy then!