Metal Mouth Message Board

Hi, lingualists! I have a question that may be buried in these boards, but I've done a few searches and I haven't come across it yet. So I'll ask it now:

How do y'all get over the lisp?

I am traveling down the same road the majority of you have traveled down. Got the linguals in. Noticed severe speech problems. Got frustrated. Had to continue living life.

I'm at Day 5 at this point and I still have the lisp. It is better than a few days ago, but I want to know - did you all actively work on getting over it? Or do you just wake up one morning and you're talking 95% normal again? It seems like everyone says you get over it, but no one seems to know HOW it happened.

Any guidance you great and supportive group of folks have, I'd be in your debt. This board has been a god-send and I'll be here a lot, especially these 2 years - so thank you.

It really comes with practice. The first day after getting my linguals, I sounded like I had a bunch of marbles in my mouth. People obviously noticed, but I would play it off by telling them I'm trying to do my best Sylvester the Cat impression. Definitely provided a lot of laughs by saying "Sufferin' succotash!"

But anyways, I tried talking as much as I could, even singing/rapping aloud to songs in my car to get better. My goal was to hide my lisp before my friends' college graduation in two weeks. I thought this would be the best way to see how much I'm improving since they didn't know about my braces. Just as I had hoped, no one noticed anything with my speech. They only realized the braces after I had to explain why I couldn't eat anything like crunchy like chips, and even then any lispy sounds were barely noticeable.

I've noticed the only time the lisp comes back is when I am dehydrated, really tired, or only after my tongue gets cut up by the archwire (and that only happened because I had to talk a lot more than I usually do during graduation). It'll get better.

My advice is keep talking as much as you can to allow your tongue to adjust. And also try singing to fast-paced songs or raps since they do a pretty good job exhausting your mouth. I suggest any songs by Eminem, assuming you don't let the content bother you, considering he can sing (from what I counted) almost 300 words per min.

By the way, I got my linguals April 28, and I already feel pretty comfortable with them.

Well I'm an idiot, I just realized the thread was started back in 2009. Either way, it gets better.

No, you're not an idiot! I think 2009 is my 'join' date. I am a week into the upper linguals and I feel like I go in and out. Some days I seem to do better, but especially at work, I seem to wear down near the afternoon. Marbles in the mouth is the best description! Thank you so much! I am realizing it's a gradual process. I am not really altering the way I speak, though.

I also notice that part of it is my tongue is scared! If I swallow a pill, my tongue jerks back from the brackets, even though it has no reason to be hesitant!

Also, which others on here may attest to, I'm also tired of worrying about it! Last week I was freaking out, to be honest. Getting upset when a word came out sloppy, regretting the decision, getting bummed about 2 years of slurring. But you can only be in a freak-out state for so long. So I've relented and what will be, will be. I think looking at how my teeth are (or were) is also motivating. It's going to be a rough 2 years, but it'll be an improvement over the previous 30 and make the rest of my 30-50 that much better.

Haha, yea I realized I was looking at the join date after I posted that message. Too bad there isn't a way to delete posts.

I've also noticed that some days I do a lot better and other days aren't so great. I guess it's part of adjusting. I usually do a lot better after work, which is probably due to me being more relaxed and thinking less about it.

I had the tongue problem during the first week because it felt weird with the brackets taking up space. But that has gone away pretty much.

That's how I'm looking at it, just keep motivating myself by thinking about my smile.

Today's my third full day with my top lingual brace and I am still lisping away!!! Luckily I've taken a few days of work so I'm hoping to get over the worst of it by then (I'll be back in the office on day six).

I thought anyone reading this thread might be interested in the blog I've started to document my journey. I'll be posting lots of photos of my teeth plus an honest account of my experiences of pain, eating, speaking and products I've found useful.

In particular I've just written a full post about my speech after the first 48 hours with linguals which you might want to read here:

http://insideimsmiling.wordpress.com/20 ... es-speech/

You can find the full blog at http://insideimsmiling.wordpress.com - come over and let me know what you think!

I'm 4 months in now and the speech issues are still a problem for me. My orthodontist told me the lisping would disappear after a week or so — well, it took slightly longer than that, but yes the lisp did go. However, I'm still left with what I can only describe as sluggish sounding speech, especially with 'S' sounds and 'S' sounds which are in close proximity to a 'T' - a word like 'costs' is very difficult for me to say clearly.

I should point out, it's not immediately noticeable to other people — although when you point it out they then pick up on it — and, as other posters have mentioned, the severity changes depending upon whether I'm tired/have had a bad sleep/am de-hydrated/or just not in the mood!

However, it is still there, I can hear it and I know some others can too. And if my job didn't involve speaking for a living then it wouldn't be a massive issue. But that's not the case for me!

Question is: has anyone noticed any improvement after 4 months in? I'm kinda thinking that if my tongue hasn't adapted by now, will it ever? If not, I'm prepared to switch to traditional ceramic braces on the front (at least for the top set which I think most causes speech issues).

LOL- I not only have speech problems but I am drooling too!

I was going over a report at coworkers desk and noticed a spit spot on it.... hope he didn't.

I'm coming up to one month with top linguals only (conventional ceramics on bottom) and my speech has been pretty good since the beginning. It's probably easier with only having to deal with the top but apart from the odd random lispy word that still creeps in (for no apparent reason it seems) I can't say speech has been a problem at all. Certainly not bad enough for anyone to comment, though I notice myself.

It only took a few days to get used to them initially, I can't seem to shake the random lisp thing though... It does seem worse if I know there's a tricky word coming up and the anticipation plus trying to say the 's' quietly actually makes it worse. It's better off just forgetting about it and talking confidently!