Metal Mouth Message Board

After three torturous years of getting relatively nowhere with linguals on the bottom and especially after one premolar refused to move in, my ortho put ceramics on the outside from my right canine to the molar and removed their corresponding lingual brackets, leaving linguals on the front and left side. The relief of having only some linguals off, and the extra space it gave my tongue, combined with an inspection of the ceramics by my stylish wife, and the fact that braces are more prevalent in adults than ever before, I decided to go all out on the ceramics at the bottom and so on Monday at 10:30am I will be a proper braceface!

I have decided to adopt a screw you attitude to the people I was embarrassed to see me and to smile as if they are not there and not to try hide them with the monkey lip gymnastics some people adopt when they have braces.

In the interim I had the ortho remove the rest of the linguals and I feel so much better and my speech is a million times better. In hindsight I would say that the difference in speech between two lingual arches and one is a million times worse than between one lingual arch and none.


Wish me luck!

Sorry, but I'm wondering if the problem was your Ortho's inexperience with linguals. I have read that treatment can be delayed if Ortho has not completed enough cases.

Ortho has tons of experience. Did my wife's linguals perfectly and finished them ten years ago. I think my case is just better suited to ordinary braces but the linguals have contributed so much to getting me right but reached their limit. From having the ceramics on for about nine hours my teeth have lined up amazingly.

From the change over, and as I have written previously today on this forum, with the prevalence, acceptance and practically invisibility of ceramics, linguals are overrated, annoying, make you sound drunk and should be bumped from their pedestal (especially lower arch linguals) by the ceramic king of comfort, straightening and effectiveness.

Great to hear the ceramics are working for you.

I have delayed getting braces because I was absolutely sure I wanted linguals. Now I think I might just go with regular metal on the bottom and ceramic on top. Linguals are so expensive and per the videos on You Tube, people with linguals look and talk like there is a device on the roof of their mouth/against their teeth - I hadn't expected that look. In other words, they are not completely invisible.

Thanks for the info! Super helpful.

Good Luck!

sounds like my case

read my thread

some orthos just shouldnt take on cases that are too complicated for them

my braces experience has been a complete disaster