So far, we’ve had the headgear & expander on for about 4 months. See previous post here. It seemed to only hurt for about a week and then my daughter was fine. She has made good progress with her teeth and is almost done with this part of the treatment.
It’s taken me awhile to figure out how to turn the expander each week. Since it’s only done once a week, I feel like I have to refigure out how to do it each time. You have to hold the key in a certain way to get the expander to turn. I’ve only just now gotten the hang of it and can do it quickly. I always shine a light into her mouth so that I can see what I’m doing. The challenge is getting the key out once the turn happens since the key ends up in the back of her mouth almost chocking my daughter.
Challenges:
- Getting the minimum 12 hours of wear a day is hard. My daughter tends to sleep only 9-10 hours a day, which means we need to make up the extra time during the day. I forget about this. When I do think about it, it’s at a bad time, like right before a meal. My daughter also resists wearing it during the day. (She’s 8) She hasn’t taken the responsibility upon herself to remember. I am pretty sure that not wearing it often has slowed our progress.
- Food gets stuck in the expander. I found a medicine syringe that my daughter uses to squirt the food out. It gets some, but I’m pretty sure there’s more in there. This grosses me out thinking about all the bacteria living in her mouth. It feels unclean. I can’t wait to get the expander out.