I never thought I'd be buying denture adhesive at this stage of life

Indeed I am.

But that's really great news because it means Emily has her obdurator!

We went last Monday to pick it up but it didn't fit quite right. The orthodontist wanted to make some adjustments so we arranged to come and pick it up on Thursday. None of us noticed what the real problem was until then.

Emily's impressions were made by her pediatric dentist when she was sedated for all of her (four!) root canals. None of us thought anything about it, but he did the impressions before the root canals and crowns which makes sense since he wouldn't want the impression goop to pull off her new crowns.

Only...he wasn't able to save one of her teeth. A tooth that was still present in the impressions when the orthodontist made her obdurator. A tooth that was supposed to support one of the wires for her obdurator.

So while the orthodontist adjusted it as best he could, he recommended that we use denture adhesive to hold it in place until she gets used to having it in and can keep it in herself. They recommended that we try to have her wear it about an hour a day until she gets used to it and gradually build up.

Thursday and Friday she wore it for a few minutes at a time. I was still trying to figure out how much denture adhesive to use (it says use sparingly at first and I took them at their word!) and wasn't using enough to keep it in place. Saturday she wore it for about 45 minutes and today she wore it for a few hours! Once it's in she forgets about it so I think she'll be used to it in no time. She hasn't tried eating a whole meal with it in yet so that will be an adventure.

It's pretty amusing to hear her talk. Her S's are completely gone. Without the obdurator she makes S's by sending air through her nasal cavity (the equivalent of making the S sound with your mouth open for those of us with a cleft palate) and she doesn't know how to do it when the hole is closed odd. It's funny because she can tell she can't say the S's but she can't figure out how to do it yet.

Once she gets used to the obdurator she will wear it pretty much 24 hours a day. We'll take it out once a day for cleaning (with denture tablets!) but she will eat and sleep with it in.