Herbst Appliance & Expander in 4 weeks. (Freaking out)

[40Shot]

I’m Getting a Herbst appliance + expander in about 4 weeks and I’m very nervous. I’ve been trying to do extensive research on what other people’s experiences are like and I keep getting more nervous and worried the more I find out. My main concern is that it seems a large majority of people have lisps and develop somewhat of a speech impediment from having both the Herbst and expander at the same time, allot of the youtube videos I’ve seen where people are wearing a Herbst & expander at the same time and are speaking about it have a lisp and it seems that there having trouble speaking. Allot of what I read online seems to also indicates that it gives you a lisp and that you sound weird speaking. People with just the Herbst no expander seem to either have a small lisp and minimal effect on speech or no effect on speech at all but basically everyone that I’ve seen with both the Herbst and expander at the same time have a lisp or sound funky when they speak. I’m a young adult and I work as a manager at a marketing firm so I have to do allot of talking and I don’t want to have a lisp + speech difficulty for 9-12 months. Also another component is that I’m concerned about is how visible it is to everyone else especially at my job I’m worried people won’t take me serious when I’m talking if there’s a bunch of metal visible, I mean with the lisp and speech difficulty obviously my employees would know there’s something new in my mouth. It’s just seems really embarrassing and I’m not really ready for that. From my research I’ve already accepted I won’t be able to bite on my back teeth for a few weeks as it pushes my lower jaw forward and that it will probably hurt and be uncomfortable I’m not worried about that but the lisp and speech difficulty is what’s freaking me out. My whole day consists of me thinking about this 24/7 I’m freaking out to be honest, so if anyone is still active on this forum that has experience with a Herbst appliance and expander if you don’t mind telling me about your experience. My apologies if this paragraph is all over the place usually I can condense my thoughts better but I’m very worried, this is one of the most nervous times I’ve ever dealt with in my entire life I’m stressing out and I'm not entirely sure why I’m stressing out so hard, think it’s allot to do with fear of the unknown. Also I actually knew someone with a Herbst appliance when I was younger one of my close friends on the tennis team had a Herbst and I remember that it was difficult to understand him and he had a bad lisp, when he got it off it was very apparent that his speech had returned, so remembering this from when I was younger concerns me allot.

Not sure if anyone is active on this forum still but even if nobody replies with there experiences with the Herbst I’ll still be able to look through peoples past posts about it on here so regardless finding his website has been very helpful, appreciate anyone who read all of that thank you for your time.

[djspeece]

You are on the right track, and of course you realize that a lot of what you read may be coming mainly from people who are having issues. Full disclosure, I have never had to deal with a Herbst and am grateful for that -- braces were bad enough. Researching other experiences here is a good idea -- most people are pretty upbeat. What I do recall reading is that many people develop work-arounds to the lisp by practicing their speech and enunciation as to eliminate the lisp. I assume you have spoken with your orthodontist about your concerns and I hope that he/she is sensitive to them and has some positive constructive advice. You may also want to consult with a speech therapist to get some ideas. I had enunciation issues just with braces - I never did have crisp clear articulation. I had to really work at it but once I had some better habits things got better. I was an older adult with braces - in my early 60s -- and a project manager who did a lot of talking all day to my team and to customers. One interesting finding was no one really cared or even noticed that I had braces! On the flip side, they didn't even notice when they were removed! I think most people apprecate any effort for self-improvement, especially if there are underlying medical issues.

In the search box above "Search this topic" use Herbst + lisp and some interesting posts come up. A couple were reassuring about the lisp issue.

Best of luck to you!

[40Shot]

Thank you for taking the time out of your day to reply, I really appreciate it. That makes me feel a little bit better about what you said about people throughout your day to day work life not noticing or caring, I needed someone to tell me something like that. But you are 100% correct probably allot of what I was reading online regarding peoples experiences were coming from people having issues or they most likely wouldn’t be speaking about there experience online, I definitely have seen a good amount of overarching themes and similarities with allot of peoples experiences though. I have voiced my concerns to my orthodontist and she said she was going to be upfront and honest with me and she basically told me it will give me a lisp and I will have trouble speaking just because of the top expander component on the roof of my mouth and the bar behind my front teeth from the herbst in combination with the new jaw position makes it difficult to speak. I appreciate her for being upfront but it really didn’t make me feel anymore at ease, she basically just explained the components of the herbst and expander and why i won’t be able to speak properly not really telling me what I could do about it. She did indeed recommend speech therapy and when I asked if the speech therapy helped everyone that did it she said “it helps some people it doesn’t help everyone” so yeah that doesn’t make me feel much better to be honest. Another discouraging thing though is I saw videos on YouTube with people wearing herbsts that said they had theirs in for multiple months, some said half a year and they still had speech issues and a lisp. In the research I’ve done I’ve also seen people say every 4-6 weeks when you get the herbst tightened and they put attachments on it you have to learn how to talk a different way because your jaw is in a new position each month when they tighten it. Definitely will track down an experienced speech therapist that specializes in the area of fixed orthodontic appliances in the next coming weeks before I get them put in and set 2 maybe 3 times a week appointments if possible and hopefully that can help. I just discovered this site earlier so I’ve only looked at a few herbst related posted so far and they were upbeat. I will look up the herbst+lisp combo on the search bar, that will definitely be helpful in me finding advice on the lisp thank you for recommending that. This site has probably been the most helpful thing I’ve found so far online in my research and I’ve only scratched the surface of this site so far.

Again thank you for replying, I thought people were going to see my super long paragraph voicing my concerns and just say “man up” or something so I really appreciate your sincere response.


Best regards,

A.J

[djspeece]

Orthodontics is not for the faint of heart, for sure . You have a good plan. Best of luck.