Memories of having to get dental braces and head-gears. Fun stories about my own and our kid's experiences with having dental braces.
Dental Braces and Head-gears
Whenever I hear someone mention anything about headgear – maybe when they’re remarking about new techno wear like Bluetooth, ipod headphones, virtual reality stuff or something totally unrelated like sports equipment – I’m inevitably brought back to memories of wearing braces or “railroad tracks” on my teeth as we used to call them! I was one of those kids who had such a bad arrangement of teeth that besides wearing braces, I had to wear those “space-cadet” looking dental appliances!
If I had been willing to wear that headgear during the day to school, I would’ve shaved about a year off about a year from my almost 3 ½ years in braces, which I started wearing in about the 8th Grade. I certainly didn’t want to look different and didn’t have tough enough skin to bear the brunt of teasing from classmates by wearing a headgear to school.
For anyone who’s had braces, you know that pain you feel after you’ve gone to the orthodontist for your follow-up, which inevitably entailed tightening up on your railroad tracks. For about 2 days, I’d been unconsciously pushing on the teeth affected by the brace tightening just to speed up the process and get used to the sensitivity.
My orthodontist, Dr. Nolan, had his office in the old Maison Blanche building in downtown New Orleans on Canal Street, which I would get to using the St. Charles Avenue streetcar to from De La Salle High School in uptown New Orleans. That was the building we used to love to go to at Christmas time to go and see the "Mr. Bingle" (the song that accompanied the neat Christmas window displays and "Winter Wonderland" was: "Jingle Jangle Jingle, Here comes Mr. Bingle, with another message from Kris Kringle").
Dr. Nolan was a character who knew how to cheer you up and decrease the fears or anticipatory stress most people have when going to a dentist, much more when you go to an orthodontist. He would sing “Hor-cas-ti-tas, Hor-cas-ti-tas, how are you now Hor-cas-ti-tas,” (based on the “O Christmas Tree”) as he loved to light heartedly tease our name.
My older sister, Helen, and older brother, David, also got braces before me from Dr. Nolan, but I had the worst teeth formation of all. While we were all mostly compliant with the doctor’s “do’s and don’ts” about what could eat while dealing with railroad tracks, I will never forget the time he somehow knew that I had snuck and had eaten some of my favorite candies a few times – sugar daddies and sugar babies! Obviously, I must’ve busted a few connecting pieces to the braces!
Besides making you look like an alien, those head-gears were uncomfortable to sleep with and hard to connect some times. And at times during the course of wearing braces, I had to also use the frustrating rubber bands that always seemed to break on me. A few times on the streetcar, I would see other students wearing their head-gears, and I was pretty impressed.
After finally finishing my course of the head-gear and railroad tracks, I was introduced to retainers, which I loved to gross out my sister by manually taking out of my mouth with my tongue and taunted her. I probably wore those for about 8 years at night before putting them away for retirement – maybe dentures are the next novelty in line for me!
Later on, when I was in college, I had to get my wisdom teeth taken out two at a time. I don’t remember much about the surgeries except waking up and later on enjoying a lot of ice creams like people do when they get their tonsils removed. In graduate school, I had to get a gum graft, since I had been brushing too hard and had created some gum recession on my bottom front teeth. That was even worse in terms of after surgery discomfort.
All of our children have had to get braces, as it seems like they inherited my genes for crooked teeth, although none have had the pleasure of having to wear a headgear. JP, our youngest son, recently completed his first phase of the braces tenure (he'll need to restart soon due to his teeth rapidly moving) and really had it easy when I think of all the incentives that Dr. Misuraca gives his clients. As you walk into his office, you are first struck with the china cabinet displaying all the kid stuff like ipods, dvd players, hats, etc. that kids can get per the tokens they garner by following Dr. M’s dental hygiene rules. And all of his staff are so kind and engaging with both kids and adults. My wife, who loves to make pralines, treats his staff many times to those sugar drenched delights. I like to tease Dr. "M" that we try to give more referrals to his Dentist friends per those scrumptious pralines!
We all now occasionally use the Sonic Brush and other implements to help to keep our teeth in shape. While I never did much flossing as a kid and have many cavities as proof of this, it comes like second nature now to floss every evening and do other proper dental hygiene. So as I get older and hopefully wiser, even without wisdom teeth, maybe dentures are on surely my horizon. As my senior clients used to advocate to the State Legislature to get more Medicaid funding for senior dental care, I’ll soon be carrying a sign like they did: “We have the right to bite!” The only braces I guess I’ll be wearing soon are ones for my back!
Keith John Paul Horcasitas, 1133 Knollhaven Drive, BRLA 70810, khorcasitas.yahoo.com, August 30, 2010
Re-Release! No longer back-listed. Return to the Olde Ways. The hustle and bustle of modern day life has brought many of us to a quick fix attitude.This book is for those of you who are fed up; have looked at your life and your loved ones and realize
Dental Braces and Head-gears
