Metal Mouth Message Board

Awww, thanks everyone for your notes! I went for adjustment 3 yesterday. Open, bite, open, bite, hm, then this long string of numbers. I waited for him to get done, then asked about what we could do about the lower gap. He says, "so, do you want it bigger or smaller?" I told him I can only...

It is reassuring to know that you are going through the same stage that I am, I guess they have to spread our teeth out to untangle them before they pull them in? :Questions: That's almost exactly how my ortho described the "getting worse before it gets better" stage. I think he used the ...

So, what foods are you getting stuck in your gap these days? It's closing up pretty well; you'll be down to sesame seeds or single kernels of rice soon. :) My own lower gap traps rice and vermicelli as if each bit has a magnet in it. Classy. Yup, I'm bored of it all, too. Adjustment #3 is next Monda...

I think Mr. Twisty has made a little progress between those last two pictures. Look carefully at the angle between Mr. Twisty's bracket and the lateral tooth in front if him. In the first picture, the angle looks like almost 90 degrees. In the second, it looks more like 60 degrees. Come on, Mr. T! I...

My first bracket "incident" started in the car on the way home from getting the braces on. At the first stop light after his office, I felt and heard a little crack. I thought for sure it was the inevitable sounds of movement I was going to hear over the next year. Once I got back to work,...

Look at all that movement you got! Do you see how straight your wire is now? That's awesome. I'm glad to hear your irritation cleared up too. I am in lock-step with you in the "worse before better" stage. I had crowdy teeth for all my adult life, now I have gaps all over the place. My lowe...

I use FSA for my braces too, which is the only help I get since my dental insurance doesn't cover adult orthodontics (boo!). Our plan works very similarly to sherilynn's and lilblackdress', except for a couple details. It is reimbursement plan, so I have to pay for the service first, then fill out p...

You have fantastic teeth, Melissa. If my teeth looked even 20% like yours when I'm done this adventure, I'd be a very happy woman.

Promise that before you get rebraced, you'll eat some corn-on-the-cob, love it, then not tell me about it cuz I'd get too jealous?

I am woefully behind in my updating! I had my second adjustment on Monday. It went by almost too fast! He peeked in, bite-open-bite-open, said "This is going way better than I anticipated," and told the assistant to do the same configuration I had. So, I got new, clean ligs (I went with si...

[The starter wire's] function is to start tipping the crowns of your teeth into alignment, but they do not move the roots of the teeth. Sorry to thread-jack, but I don't get how the crowns can move but the roots don't as well. I've heard this said before, but I just don't get the physics of how tha...

Me too, Kittenmaisey. I don't remember a time in my life when I haven't had trouble with my right ear. It feels stuffy all. the. time. :yuck: In my case, Sudafed and whatever doesn't make much difference in the day-to-day pain and stuffiness (but if I do have allergies, the Sudafed does make it feel...

I don't have more sensitivity or pain than other people, but I do have a long-standing dental phobia about pain during procedures that was not acknowledged. It kept me out of the dentist's chair for many, many years. Getting braces was, and is, the ultimate test of my personal strength. My dentist, ...

Happens to me all the time! I used to do this before braces, but now my teeth smack together because I have no idea where they are in relation to one another anymore. I smiled in the mirror yesterday, saw this weird white thing in my mouth, and went "Holy crap! What is that?!?!" It was my ...

Good for you for taking charge of your care. I know that's a huge load off your mind. And saving money on implants? That's just icing on the cake. I was thrilled to death when my ortho said he could close the spot my dentist had planned for a bridge or implant. I did feel a little bad about my denti...

I have a crossbite on my right second molars. They've shifted enough so that now they're meeting point-to-point. It's bad enough that no other teeth meet for chewing while those teeth do that, but I grind hard at night, so those poor little points are really getting crunched. I plan to ask the ortho...