Metal Mouth Message Board

i find it hard to make conversation with strangers in the first place, so i usually don't say anything, but may flash a smile and if they notice and say something then there's something to talk about. i do notice more adults wearing braces now, almost like you notice every other car of the make and ...

I don't think 'braces-lock' has ever really happened (certainly not between my wife and myself) but this is cute...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAtcJ954TjQ

sorry for the re-post; I posted in the wrong forum and couldn't figure a way to move it... so my kids went with me to my adjustment yesterday and on the way there, dared me to get the glow in the dark ties. With halloween coming up I thought hey why not? So I've got a top and bottom glow-in-the-dark...

Having a five-year-old, I learned quickly that a mouthguard is a great idea. I got whacked in the mouth by the back of an angry five-year-old head once. Once. That's all it took. I saw stars; it felt like I had holes in my lips for two days. I can't imagine *boxing* without braces, let alone with th...

Hope your uppers don't cause you the grief you had when the lowers went on. I had my uppers on first (by about a month) with no horrible discomfort, but when my lowers went on, it took me over a month to get used to them. much more food stuck in the lowers than the uppers, etc. Based on what I went ...

I have bonded brackets up & down, 12 & 12, and my right bottom first molar even has a fissure in it (being crowned after the braces are off). They glued the buccal tube right to it. That's an anchor tooth which is not moving the way the others are, and apparently they feel (and the dentist a...

So far I usually leave the ortho's office pain free, but I know which teeth will be bothering me the next day. Each time it's different, and the last time, the assistant was training someone, which was fantastic for me because she dictated each step of the process - removing the old ligs, and an old...

I am amazed at how much movement is needed to align my mostly-straight (or so I thought) teeth. I think these archwires are actually pulling my teeth out - spreading them out - before the work to pull them into the places they will end up in. Almost all my teeth have ached from time to time since I'...

it's been a while, so i thought i'd post a quick one. no pix yet... i got the tops on march 21, and had pretty much no problems. no real pain aside from some sores which came and went, and the tightness - after about 4 days i wished i could take them off just for a few minutes. another funny thing: ...

no pics yet... at my first adjustment (got the bottoms on at the same time) i wanted something other than plain silver ligs, so i looked at the colors available and requested the dark metallic blue. they just heard blue and installed bright (not light) blue. i was a little self conscious at first, a...

I quit almost cold turkey. Give it a month or two and keep water close by. I did a couple of 'just one today' and 'ok, maybe a diet pepsi" days and found myself in a few situations where a soda cost a whole lot less than the equivalent bottle of water and drank soda more-or-less out of protest....

I laid off soda about six months ago (after a 20 year habit of many a day) and lost at least 10 pounds. that was enough to get me on the bandwagon anyway. there are dozens of other reasons not to drink soda, but use your braces as a reason to stop spending the money on it - drink water instead! i us...

I got my tops on march 21, bottoms on april 19. when they put the bottom brackets on and took out all the lip/mouth spreaders, they had me bite down to see how it all fit and immediately i knew the top teeth met those bottom brackets (not quite ouch, but it would have been!). so i thought they would...

tommyfive's redux: yes, they certainly could have done both at once. many orthos do when it's not contraindicated by the particulars of a given case, and if that's how they operate. In my case, many orthos would have braced both arches in one appointment. my ortho doesn't do longer than 1 hour appoi...

my bite's been changing almost daily, especially since the bottoms went on about 10 days ago. at that same appointment they swapped in a big ol' rectangular wire on my top arch. (that didn't bother me as much at first as the new bottoms), and I've really noticed my tops for the last week. anyway, th...