Extractions & Frenectomy

Today I went back for my monthly braces treatment. This time round, the works were rather horrifying.

Extractions
I previously had the 4th tooth (lelft and right) extracted from the upper teeth. Thus, this time round, the extractions were for the 5th tooth (left & right) from the bottom teeth. Surprisingly, the extractions were faster this time round. In fact, the nurse didn't had to hold my head in place while the dentist yank with all his might! It just went "POP"... twice!

Frenectomy
Now this one was totally new and not made known to me before. According to google results, the description of the surgery is as such:

• A frenum is a fold of tissue or muscle connecting the lips cheek to the jawbone. A frenectomy is the removal of one of these folds of tissue. Sometimes a frenum can be attached too high / too low on the gums causing either recession or spaces between teeth. The procedure to remove this is a called labial frenectomy and involves the removal of tissue attachment between the two front teeth as the gap between the teeth can again pushed apart by the frenum even after it being initially corrected via a different procedure.

My frenum was apparently too low which resulted in a small triangle gap in between my 2 front teeth. The dimple that I have; just below the nose was apparently caused by tension of this tissue attachment too. And so, the removal was necessary given that the frenum is restricting the movement of my upper jaw.

The scary thing bout this surgery was the sounds emitted by the laser beam... It went "tek tek tek tek tek tek" which scared the shit out of me! I was so scared that when Alan placed his hands on my legs to calm me, I felt like crying!

After the surgery, the dentist gave me a mirror to look into and what I saw made me wanna cry even more! Cos the place where the tissue attachment was previously located was now gone and was covered with blood!

Bite Blocks
The lump of clay I mentioned in my previous post was called a bite block. Instead of 1, I now have 2 bite blocks, creating an even larger gap when I bite.

So ya, not only do I have to endure the pain once the anesthetics' over, I also have to suffer from the bleeding and oh I can't eat any solid food for another month!


When I first started the treatment, I was told that it is RM6,000 for the entire treatment and this is non-inclusive of extraction, scaling or any other dental works in between...

• xx-03-2008: $1,100 [Deposit, X-Rays, Photos & Moulding]
• 30-03-2008: $ 870 [Deposit & Upper Braces Fitting]
• 20-04-2008: $ 423 [Braces Treatment, Extraction & Medication]
• 18-05-2008: $ 325 [Braces Treatment & Wire Change]
• 17-08-2008: $ 325 [Braces Treatment & Bottom Braces Fitting]
• 14-09-2008: $ 764 [Braces Treatment, Extraction, Frenectomy & Medication]

YTD, I've spent $3,807 and I am only at my 4th visit (excluding the 1st 2 trips).

Honestly, I don't know what I got myself into. All I knew was that, it is too freaking late to back off now so I just have to bite the fucking bullet and charge ahead optimistically! Sigh...