Metal Mouth Message Board

I've had some really unpleasant braces dreams, and some really good ones. The bad ones have included 1. having teeth fall out, 2. having the brackets bigger and bigger until they were HUGE, making it impossible to close my lips, and 3. that my extraction sites, after having stopped bleeding, startin...

Are you saying that you only get 4 elastics at a time? Don't they come in a bag with, like, 100 of them? Anyway, I'm sure they'd be willing to mail them to you - after all, having the force be constant is, from what I've been told, the most important thing for effectiveness, so skipping 2 days would...

I just wanted to start a thread saying "THANK YOU!" to KK for the oodles of time and energy she puts into this board. Every time someone has a question or a concern, KK steps up to the plate to help, and I just think it's really, really awesome. I'd be willing to bet that almost everyone o...

If the choice were mine, I'd go for extractions. I had four premolars extracted to accomodate my teeth, and I think it was the best choice for me. Now there's so much room to work with, whereas before, I could barely floss because my teeth were so incredibly crowded! Although I was really, really af...

I had one where the pressure from the braces made several teeth fall out.

When I woke up in the morning, I ran to the mirror first thing to be sure it wasn't true!

Spacers were DEFINITELY the worst. More painful than extractions. I've had four different powerchains thus far, and they've caused me very little pain. My elastics haven't hurt either, really. I've seen a LOT of movement with only minor pain. But the spacers were the worst, surely because my teeth w...

The hardest part of extractions is trying to eat afterward. I was very paranoid about getting dry-socket (as some might remember from my worried posts). So I took up a creative way of eating for the days after my extractions. I ate beans with cheese, cream of wheat, soups, oatmeal, and mashed potato...

Well, I know a thing or two about that! I had two extractions the day before an important final exam, and I had to change the gauze in my mouth DURING the exam. And you know what? I got an A! My braces actually do affect my speech a little, because I have a bar that sits behind my lower teeth, a lin...

I drink about 2 cups a day with cream, and it hasn't been too bad... but let me just warn: Curry WILL stain your braces. I thought it would be OK if I brushed as soon as I'd finished eating and tried to keep it off my brackets. NOPE. I ate it really fast and scrubbed my teeth with whitening toothpas...

I'm glad to hear that you all still got hired - I'm a little nervous about it too! I feel like I look 13 years old because of my braces, which seems like it means I'd need to be extra professional to overcome that first visual impression.

I'm glad to hear that you all still got hired - I'm a little nervous about it too! I feel like I look 13 years old because of my braces, which seems like it means I'd need to be extra professional to overcome that first visual impression.

I was breast-fed for 2 years and I had AWFUL teeth... although I had a very good bite, it was just my front teeth that had (and still, to some extent, have) problems. My sister was the same - exclusively breast-fed with very crowded teeth. I'm a HUGE supporter of breast-feeding, but I'm not sure it'...

Yeah, the spacer pain was the worst so far for me. I thought I was fine until I tried to chew something - ouch.

You know what actually helped - I would chew on stuff, like get beef jerky and just lightly chew - like a teething baby!

I was told to change them every time I eat or whenever I felt they were no longer nice and tight, since they lost their elasticity. I do change them when I eat, but also after 5 or more hours, because I don't think they're pulling much after that. I just sort of feel them to test how elastic they ar...

Thanks everyone for the advice! I've finally perfected my technique, and here's what I've learned: -Orthosil is much harder to get to stick. However, once on, it is softer and glide-y-er (haha, not a word!) than other wax. -For Orthosil, it needs to be drier than other kinds. I got some DenTek from ...