Brandi from South Dakota

I'm 30 years old and about to enter my second full week of braces. I got the metal ones because they told me they'd work the fastest. I'm scheduled to have them for two years.

So far my teeth hurt a lot. I can't bite down or put any pressure on any of them. I'm am totally surprised at how much food I can swallow without actually chewing it! They put cement on one molar on each side so that my overbite would not cause my top teeth to get chipped on the brackets on the bottom. The cement is the worst part. It feels awful and it hurts. I think I need something to put in my mouth at night to prevent me from clenching my jaw. I love the wax - could not live without it! They are starting to not hurt as much, but I have one bracket in the back that is rubbing right on my cheek and that hurts. I have one molar in a metal band and that first week I cut my tongue on it a lot.

That first day, I freaked out. If I thought my teeth looked crooked without braces, they looked even more crooked IN them! But they are already straightening and I've had the wires snipped once already. I went back to work that afternoon and everyone was really nice and told me they didn't look bad. I've had only a couple of days where I wanted to rip all of my teeth out and not have ANY. :) It is getting better AND I've lost about 2-3 pounds in a week and a half! Ibuprofen rocks and I would have been able to survive that first week without it.

I can't chew hardly anything and when I try and tackle something, it takes forever or hurts. I lost one of the cement filling things last week while at lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings - eating boneless chunks. I wish the other one would come out too. I'm a little freaked out that I can move all of my teeth with the slightest bit of pressure. I hope that means they are moving quickly! Some have already moved - I can tell and feel it with my tongue.