Orthodontics

let's talk about it

Kitty, who is now 15, had her braces off just before Christmas and Sam, who is now 12 is at the start of his orthodontic journey. So occasionally I am called by friends about teen orthodontics: is it worth it? Is it agony? How long does it take?

And I always say, “Listen, you are possibly talking to the wrong person about this. I am an absolute maniac about straight teeth. A hardliner. A fundamentalist. I think one of the most important things you can do equip your child against the cold, cruel world is to give them straight teeth.”

And the parents say Oh, it’ll be such a fuss and so painful and go on for such a long time. They also don’t want their children to think that they are somehow not perfect and so on.

But, funnily enough, this is often from parents who themselves had braces, and therefore have gone through life with lovely and perfect teeth. And so they say all this stuff about the distress of the orthodontics because they never lived with the much more horrible distress of having crooked teeth.

Well, I HAVE.

I ought to have had braces aged 13 but the one orthodontist I visited with my mother had a very bad bedside manner and went on and on about braces top and bottom and pulling out teeth and so on. I reeled away in horror and my mother, not a nag or a hardliner, didn’t persuade me otherwise.

Fast forward to 2009 and, aged 29, I finally had Invisalign to correct a very stray eye tooth that gave me a permanently snaggled look. And lemme tell you, [slugs whisky, draws on a cigarette], there is a world of difference to how people treat you when you have straight teeth and wonky teeth. And there is a world of difference to how you approach the world with straight teeth and wonky teeth.

I have experienced life with and without straight teeth and my conclusion is that the inconvenience and monstrous expense of orthodontic work is absolutely worth it.

BUT! I want to tell you a few things about the process, so that you are fore-warned and fore-armed…