I started orthodontic treatment 4 years ago, when I was in my third year of middle school. The reason I started was that my teeth were all fine, but only my upper right canine wasn’t coming in.. So I went to a local dental clinic, and they said it was an impacted tooth and told me to extract 2 maxillary premolars and do orthodontic treatment. If I could go back to that time, I would absolutely never do it, but I thought, well, if the hospital says to, I should, and started extraction orthodontics.. First, after orthodontic treatment, several side effects? appeared: 1. I couldn’t chew properly (the occlusion didn’t fit) 2. Nasolabial folds 3. Facial asymmetry 4. Teeth grinding, clenching my molars?
These side effects appeared. Until the early period after starting orthodontics, I was just living without much thought, but something felt strange. When I took photos, I looked fucking ugly lol I mean, should I say my face wasn’t my face? Like I had aged really badly? So I was like, what the fuck is this? and while looking into it, I found people saying nasolabial folds, a peanut-shaped face, and facial changes are side effects of extraction orthodontics lol. After seeing that, I regretted it so fucking much. Every day felt like shit, and because my face didn’t feel like my face, I wanted to smash all the braces. And apparently there’s even something called a retainer after orthodontics?? No, fuck, if there are side effects like this, they should tell you before orthodontics. Do they just see patients as money? It was a hospital I’d gone to since I was young in my own way, but it was really awful. I even found out while researching orthodontics that there’s such a thing as an orthodontic specialist, and of course that doctor wasn’t a specialist either.. So even when I told my parents, their reaction was, so what do you want us to do, you already started, so trust them and do it, there’s nothing you can do.. My friends were like, are you stupid? If you’re going to do orthodontics, you should do it at a university hospital or somewhere downtown, why would you do it in this crappy place? Their reactions were like that, and the world really felt like shit and it was hard.. From then on, my life started going off the rails. It felt like those stories where someone’s life is ruined from plastic surgery side effects and they become a hikikomori.. regret it.. Since this was just some quack doctor and there was no guarantee the orthodontic result would be good, it felt even more like hell. But this was still just the tip of the iceberg.. Later, after time passed, the extraction spaces did close, but something felt strange? Should I say my mouth wouldn’t close comfortably? If I closed my mouth with my jaw in a comfortable position, only part of my left molars touched first, so I had to rotate my jaw backward to the left to chew food.. At that time, I thought, hmm.. what is this? Is it normally like this? Is it obvious because I’m missing 2 molars? When I asked the doctor, he said, well.. it can’t be helped because I have 3 lower incisors (No, fuck, then why did they bite together well before orthodontics??) So during my growth period, I spent years rotating my jaw to chew (even if I tried to chew on the right, my left molars hit first, so force kept going into my left jaw), and somehow my temporomandibular joint condition kept getting stranger, and sometimes my jaw made clicking sounds? So I asked the doctor, and he said maybe my temporomandibular joint was weak to begin with? lolololololol And when I said force was only going into one side, my jaw was receding and my cheekbone was getting bigger, making the left side of my face look broad (when I looked it up, this was a symptom of TMJ-related facial asymmetry), that fucker said to a second-year high school student, then get double-jaw surgery or something, that kind of bullshit? I wore braces for almost 3 years with absolutely no progress and no communication, so I took the braces off and went to one specialist dental clinic in Busan and Pusan National University Hospital. At the specialist clinic, they said it must be uncomfortable but there’s nothing that can be done. At the university hospital, they didn’t even take an X-ray, just looked and said if I can chew, that’s enough, and told me to just live with it. After hearing that, the world really felt shitty and fucking awful. Just because I chose one wrong orthodontic clinic, I ended up with facial asymmetry, malocclusion, teeth grinding I never had before, and when I wake up, my left jaw hurts like hell. I grind and clench my teeth all night, so my face feels numb, and the person in photos is no longer me.. The left side of my face keeps getting broader, and I seriously started thinking about suicide. Is there any meaning in living more? I’d become disabled to the point where I couldn’t chew food properly. And at an age when I should be in my prime, my face also has to keep getting uglier? I was basically in a semi-mentally ill state. Every single day I regretted the past, thinking if only I hadn’t done orthodontics back then.. It feels like my mental age is still third year of middle school, like only I’m stopped there, and because I actually lived every day feeling only this kind of emotion, my emotions did die a lot. In the early days of orthodontics, I cried a lot because I was sad, but now emotional fluctuation itself hardly happens.. Still, they say time is medicine, so I set goals and studied while feeling like I was moderately cosplaying as a normal person. This time, after turning 20, I came up to Seoul and am attending an academy, and I thought Seoul might be different. With that feeling, I selected 4 famous places with orthodontic specialists and went for consultations. All 4 places said the same thing: “Your occlusion does not fit at all. You are in an open bite state. You need re-orthodontic treatment,” and “Bones that grew asymmetrically during the growth period cannot be fixed, but facial muscles and joints can improve sufficiently once you return to normal occlusion.”
Kyahahahaha re-orthodontic treatment? A year and a half?? Who cares lololol They say I can go back! They say my jaw can finally stop hurting and I can chew food “properly”! They say I finally won’t have force going only into one side of my jaw!!! They say I can sleep properly!!! They say I can finally chew gum, which I couldn’t even touch after orthodontics!!! Among the 4 orthodontic clinics, I chose the doctor I liked the most and who had good experience, and decided to do orthodontics with Invisalign. I’m so sick of metal braces that they disgust me, but clear aligners seem like something I can do with a new feeling!
After hearing the news about re-orthodontic treatment, I’m truly happy every single day haha. The treatment hasn’t even finished yet, but I’m feeling this emotion for the first time in 4 years. Looking forward to tomorrow lol. The certainty that my future self will be better. It was a feeling I really missed. I haven’t even started orthodontics yet, but I already feel good. Every day used to be painful, I missed the past, and my mood was cloudy, but these days I’m just looking forward to the future and I’m truly happy every day. It feels like color has returned to my life hahaha. I just smile on my own.
Everyone, please don’t become like me. Make sure you consult several places that are definitely orthodontic specialists before deciding.. Fighting!