It started harmlessly enough: giving a speech in front of a room of 400 attendees, my tongue hit my teeth just right. Though I’d had braces as a teen, my teeth had spent the last ten years on an inexorable march towards overbite, overcrowding and, well, chaos.
Of my front four teeth on the bottom, one had fallen so far forward that the other three had lined up behind it, with a narrow gap between them. Just enough of a gap, in fact, that when my tongue hit them, air rushed out below my tongue and through my teeth, sounding like a whistle and a lisp at the same time.
Turns out my problem wasn’t just my bottom teeth; I’ve had braces since December, 2003 and the changes are remarkable. (This is my second pass with braces: I had them as a teen, though that clearly didn’t quite do the job.)
My visit to my orthodontist (Dr. Hertzberg in Naperville is terrific) tonight confirmed what I was hopeful (desperate?) for: they’re coming off next month. I can’t wait.