The activator looks like what we used to call a retainer. It is removable, with wires that hook onto her teeth and smooth plastic pieces that fit against her palate on top and under her tongue on the bottom. Hannah picked clear plastic with glitter for her activator.
The purpose of the activator is to pull her lower jaw forward, thereby stretching the jaw muscles and training them to hold her jaw in the new position. This is to correct for an overbite, or as the orthodontist explained it, her teeth don’t match up properly. Each top tooth should sit on the crack between two bottom teeth underneath it. Mine do; Hannah’s don’t.
In addition, her jaw was popping. It doesn’t pop with the activator in, though, so that is one area where we can see an immediate improvement.
So without further ado, here is her profile without the activator in:
And here is her profile with the activator in:
And here is the activator in her mouth:
As she says, all she needs to do is sharpen those prongs, and she’ll give herself a tongue piercing! (And no, I have no idea what they are for.)
She is on school vacation for 2 more weeks, so she is wearing the activator most of the day at home. When school starts again, she won’t wear it to school, but she should still be able to get in her 12-14 hours per day. It doesn’t really look all that bad, but she drools something terrible. (You do not want to know about the time she sneezed with it in.) It also affects her speech, as her Aunt Kee discovered on the phone the other day.
Then tomorrow she gets the cast off her arm. Hoorah! She can finally get wet all over, and I have threatened to lock her in the shower and pour shower gel on her over the top of the locked doors if she doesn’t do it herself. Today she thought she had gotten cracker crumbs inside her cast (how?!), so tomorrow’s uncasting may be quite unpleasant. Wish us luck!
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