Sophia's beautiful smile is about to get a bit of a tweak!
My sweet girl has a few orthodontic issues that we have begun correcting. First, and most importantly, she has a cross bite. It's kind of hard to tell in the picture, but her lower jaw is shifting to the right and beginning to cause problems. Today, we picked up her "spider" retainer that she will wear for the next year. This retainer has a key that we turn once a week that will slightly expand the retainer and in turn slowly expand her palate. She is pretty excited because they let her pick a purple sparkle retainer with a pink case. Of course, now that she has had it in all day and her mouth is sore she is not quite so excited about it.
After this first year, she will then be fitted with a "coffin" appliance, identical to Darian's. This appliance will also expand her palate, but in order to help with crowding instead of the cross bite. My kids seem to be cursed with huge teeth and little mouths. She will probably have that appliance for another 1-2 years (bringing us to about 8 or 9 years old) and at that point they will probably put braces on her for a year or so to help with the crowding.
Fortunately, we have excellent insurance and our orthodontist spreads out payments for our portion over the next year, so it actually isn't too painful financially. Of course, they are more than willing to work with us because we have two more future patients. Oh, and Darian just broke his appliance so we have to go in and get that replaced and that will be 100% on us. At this point, it's almost embarrassing how well the staff is getting to know us.
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