clear or metal?

[vanagloria]

I have ceramic on top and metal on the bottom. My ortho charges the same for ceramic as for metal, and I have self-ligating, so no ligatures to worry about staining. If the metal had been cheaper, I probably would have gone full metal, and the ceramic are a little bulkier, but I'm pretty happy with them so far.

I'm still in the new braces stage where they're tearing my mouth up, and I'm noticing that my bottom lip (which contacts the metal brackets) is taking most of the damage. I don't know if that has to do with the material of the brackets or my particular mouth anatomy, though.

[metalmouthmama]

I have clear ceramic on top and metal on bottom. Apparently my ortho generally gives all his adult patients ceramic on top, and he will only do metal on bottom. He would have done metal on top if I wanted, but after finding out that he uses self-ligating brackets, I went along with the clear brackets on top. I have no regrets whatsoever. I really like how the clear brackets aren't super noticeable, especially in photos. However, I will say that if my ortho didn't use self-ligating brackets, I would have gone for metal on top and bottom. I really didn't want to have to worry about the clear ligature ties staining or turning yellow.

[INBC]

I'm likely doing metal. I've very self conscious of my pre-braces smile (I have a pretty noticeable cant) and I feel like visible braces will make me feel better about it, weirdly enough. Like braces are the reason my smile looks off or that at least I'm in the process of doing something about it. Without braces it just feels like my deformity is out in the open for everyone to see :(

[djspeece]

I had ceramics on top and metal on the bottom. I had this idea that my braces would be nearly invisible that way. But, not so much. Ceramics are significantly more bulky. In retrospect, it was a toss-up. Best of luck to you.