Toothbrush kit...

Emmeline had a question on her blog about how she keeps food out of her expander, and what she does to fix it when it happens. Here's a video explaining it all...

Expander check-up...

Emmeline had an appointment yesterday at Great Smiles. She saw Dr. Weissman who showed her photos of how her palate used to look, and then compared those to what Emmeline looks like currently.

After her examination, she realized that Emmeline was going to need to continue the expansion for 10 additional turns, once her original 20 are complete. Miss Friend took it in stride, of course! See this video for her thoughts on the matter!

 We love Dr. Weissman. Coincidentally, she was my little brother's orthodontist as well. She remembers Seth, and is always interested to hear how he's doing (and if he's still wearing his retainer).

Emmeline is doing so well with the expander, and the tongue crib, too. She has maintained a wonderful attitude, and I think that is making all the difference. We haven't been posting much the past week because flu and strep overtook the Glenn household. We will get back to regularly scheduled programming now that we are almost recovered!

Tongue thrust photo history...

Here's a few photos of Emmeline's tongue thrust. Just as I did with her cross bite, I thought that the tongue thrust was just a habit that she might grow out of. Little did I know it was a symptom of her top jaw being a little too narrow.

This photo from May 2015 is the first one that
I found with an obvious tongue thrust.
I believe this is when she began this habit.

In this photo from the Summer 2016,
you can just see her tongue poking out between her teeth.

November 2016.
This fall, her tongue thrust was much more prevalent. 

November 2016.
In the fall, her tongue thrust was much more prevalent. 

 

In this photo, she isn't pushing her tongue forward.
After her first appointment she was more
aware and did it much less. 

I hope this post is helpful. Emmeline is getting used to her tongue crib, so I hope that it will work to train her to break this habit. I have no idea if she could have trained herself not to do this without her tongue crib, but she is adapting quickly to talking and eating with it in place.

~Mama

The halfway point...

Emmeline has an update at the halfway point of her palate expander turns. I've also included a video of my turning the key for any interested parents.

She's developing a gap between her two front teeth, so it looks like its working!

Weekend update...

Hi,I have had my pallet expander for a week now and I 😍 it. It is fun and awesome.It feels tight when mama cranks it.I like it because I get treats like Ice cream 🍦.It also feels weird.It is hard to talk.

If you have not looked up my blog it is smile,Emmeline. You can find me on YouTube or Safari.I have 3 on YouTube.

The bad part about my expander is that I don't like it because it is hard to talk and hard to read out- loud.

I'm going to post a video tomorrow so y'all check it out!

Cross bite photo history...

I thought it would be helpful to show a few pictures of how Emmeline has always had a little crooked smile. I'll do another post with photos of her tongue thrust next week.

This is Summer 2012. Emmeline is almost 3 in this picture.
She was just learning to smile for photos,
and this was what we usually got - crooked, but cute smiles!

This is Emmeline's 4th Birthday - July 7, 2013.
More natural smile, but the cross bite is still evident.

Here's Emmeline, a few days before her 5th birthday.
In this photo, I can really see how her
top jaw and bottom jaw are right on top of each other.

Emmeline lost her first tooth at 5 1/2 years old.
In this photo, I can see how her top and bottom teeth line up,
instead of fitting together like a shoe box.

Emmeline lost a bunch more teeth from December 2014 to August 2015.
Here she is, with a pretty evident cross bit, but missing those two front teeth.

Here she is at age 6, sporting that classic snaggletooth smile!

A year later, her front permanent teeth have come in.
She still had one small incisor in this photo (top right),
which we call "Wiggler." That tooth wouldn't come out, which is what
made her dentist see that we should go for our orthodontic consult.

I'm going to keep an eye on
George and Arthur to see how they are progressing.

I hope this post is helpful. I know hindsight is 20/20, but looking back now, I can see all of the symptoms that our orthodontist pointed out at our consultation. Perhaps these photos will help any of you who are wondering if your child might need to be evaluated for a palate expander.SaveSaveSaveSave

~Mama

Expander update...

Here's a new video. My mom interviewed me about my first few days with my expander. I hope it answers some questions you might have. I read my book, too. Enjoy! 

-Emmeline

The expander goes in...

From Emmeline:
Hi! I got my palate expander and it felt weird.

The glue taste really really nasty. My spacer had broken and they put another one in for 20 minutes. While I waited for that to work I went to the Tot Lot and swung.

They gave me this cool mold of my mouth that I get to keep!

The expander went in okay the second try. If you think a spacer might be messed up or broken, tell your parent so they can take you to have it fixed. I had to help push it onto my tooth by biting on a stick which was okay.

But it's in and I have a milkshake.

They let my mom turn it the first time in the office today. Only 19 more turns to go!

Also, it's hard to talk. Watch my video and you'll see.

(From Mama: There's a picture above of the technician showing my how to get the key in there and turn the apparatus. I was very glad that I got to practice with it out of her mouth, as well as turn it after they put it in while I was at the office so that I could see how to do that! Also, I totally have Emmeline's tooth sculpture on my desk at work. It is kinda cool and creepy to have a mold of your kid's smile staring back at you. All in all, it was a very painless visit today. Emmeline is having a little trouble talking, and I'll be interested to hear how dinner goes. I'm at work, so David will be handling the mashed potatoes tonight! We hope to post tomorrow!)

Emmeline's Second Appointment - XRays, Spacers and Scans

I got there and I was called to the back room and they took pictures of my smile and inside my mouth. I had to hold my lip back with a plastic thing and hold a mirror in my mouth (which hurt a little) so they could see all of my teeth. 

They scanned inside my mouth with a wand. And I had to hold my mouth open for a while. They did this instead of making a mold of my mouth. I'm glad I didn't have to do that. And they took some other pictures of me and got X-rays of my mouth.

I saw Dr. Weisman today. She put my spacers in. Those will make the space for my palate expander to go around my teeth. Everyone was really nice. Even the people who weren't helping me. And they gave me a shirt. And the next time I go there and I wear that shirt I get a prize.

It hurt when they put the spacers in but it stopped after a few minutes. Hope you aren't nervous. This appointment wasn't too bad for me. I hope it's okay for you too.

-Emmeline

(This appointment took place on 2/7. It will take about 2 weeks for the palate expander to be created using the digital scan of Emmeline's mouth. Our appointment for that to be placed is on 2/23. -Mama)

Emmeline's First Appointment - Consultation

From Mama:

On January 31, I took Emmeline to Great Smiles for her consultation. That day, we saw Dr. Savage. She looked at her smile and the shape of her mouth. It was immediately apparent that Dr. Savage saw the need for a palate expander. She showed me and Emmeline how "off" her bite was, and also explained that she saw evidence of her grinding her molars and that she was pushing her front teeth out with her tongue because of her tongue thrust. Basically, nothing fit together right in Emmeline's mouth, so she was grinding around and pushing her tongue forward to make it more comfortable.

Dr. Savage took her time explaining, to me and to Emmeline, what our next steps would be. We would have an appointment for them to take measurements, photographs and x-rays of Emmeline's mouth. At that appointment, they would place spacers between her molars to give room for her palate expander. Gina explained the financial plans to me, which gave options on paying the remaining balance after our insurance coverage.

We left feeling good about Emmeline's care and the plans moving forward.

Video: Emmeline Before the Expander

From Mama:

One thing that I wish I could find on the internet was a video of a child Emmeline's age talking before and after getting a palate expander. I thought that would help prepare her for what was coming. Alas... I couldn't find anything.

So, we decided to do a little video series. She's going to read the same book every day and we will post videos so that we can see the progress. I hope that this will help some kids see how this palate expander will affect their speech. I also hope that it will help give Emmeline something to compare her speaking to once she has the palate expander.

After her appointment on Thursday (February, 23, 2017), we will continue to post as often as we can, not only for other's to see how a palate expander and tongue crib change speech, but also so that Emmeline can gauge her progress on learning to talk with the appliance in her mouth.

Hope this is helpful!

Emmeline's thoughts...

This is Emmeline I want to tell you about my pallet expander

 enjoy 😊 

I am nervous about my pallet expander. It will hurt the first week or two. We went to the store and this is what we got ice cream, mashed potatoes, yogurt, and some other foods.

It will feel funny because it is metal and "The crown on my head will pop out and hop up on my head because I will have a beauty pageant smile"

-Emmeline

Making our first appointment...

From Mama:

On January 24, I went by Great Smiles to make Emmeline's first orthodontic appointment. I honestly didn't even plan on going in, but something that day reminded me that Dr. Thomas, Emmeline's dentist, had asked me to take Emmeline for an orthodontic consultation. He was pretty insistent about it, actually. You see, Emmeline's top right smaller incisor (nicknamed, The Wiggler) has been loose for about a year. It wiggles and wiggles and then gets set again, only to start that up after a week or a month. We LOVE Dr. Thomas, and I don't think he wanted to be the one to tell us that Emmeline was headed for an appliance, so I am so glad I heeded his advice on seeking an ortho consult.

On January 24th at Great Smiles, Gina, the office manager, set up the time for our next visit. She looked at a photo of Emmeline and could immediately see her cross bite. I honestly had never noticed it before. You won't believe me, but I thought that was just the way she smiled - sort of crooked, but I was wrong.

After ballet class that afternoon, we dropped back by Great Smiles and sure enough, with Gina there to point it out, I could see it. Gina had Emmeline smile with her jaws together and there it was, plain as day. As she explained it to us, your top jaw should fit over your bottom jaw like a shoe box lid. Emmeline's do not fit together that way, so she has nowhere to rest her teeth together. Here smile is about half-a-tooth off. This has led to her grinding her molars, as well as pushing her tongue forward. Both of these actions are involuntary and are just her body's way of trying to find a place to settle.

We set up our appointment for the next Tuesday, the 31st, right before ballet class.  We'll share more about that one soon.