Metal Mouth Message Board

Tomorrow is brace day , WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY TICKER ?

Good luck Wanda - I'll be thinking of you tomorrow and hoping all goes well! Look forward to hearing how you get on!

Thank-you sandpiper your message was very much needed. Expander is in and upper braces on !! All went ok ... I was very nervous. Braces feel ok at moment but I really cant see how I will ever get used to this expander , it feels massive in my mouth , tastes awful , its impossible to eat anything at all. I have a major lisp going on , am producing so much saliva that I keep making this sort of sucking and clicking noise . I am supposed to turn it everyday which I think is a lot . I will post some pics when I feel up to it .

Hi Wanda,

Glad to hear you survived ok. I can totally sympathise with the saliva problem, but it will get better - it's amazing what you can adjust to. Similarly with the lisp. I had a quad helix (rather than the expander of the type you describe), and it wasn't much fun. Hang in there for the next week or so, and it will all get much easier to cope with! How is the eating? That's usually problematic to begin with as well. Keep us posted on how it all goes.

Hi Wanda,
I can really relate to your story, but it all does get better. I had both an upper and lower RPE placed just a few weeks ago and went through the very same things as you. The extra saliva will go away as your mouth/body gets used to the new contraption. It felt like I had 3-4 golf balls in my mouth when both were placed and now I hardly notice them. It is amazing how easily your body adjust to new things! Talking does get easier too, I sounded pretty bad the first few days but am almost back to normal now, and seem to just have problems if my mouth gets dry.

Good luck and let us know how it is going for you!

Hi Sandpiper so glad to hear it gets better in a week or two. Am in a lot of pain with teeth today and took ages to work out how to turn expander key , eating is very tricky I have had a bowl of porridge and two bowls of mash which is not too bad. still lots of saliva going on here !

Hi Keile88 , I think your description of having a golf balls in your mouth is very acurate . I can not begin to imagine how you are coping with expanders top and bottom , yesterday I kept thinking I cant cope with this expander ...its a sort of panic feeling of get this out of my mouth , today is a tiny bit better but still lisping a lot .

THIS IS IT !!!

I promise, you will get used to it...I had that exact same panicky feeling like you were describing. Seriously! But I stuck with it...and it is definitely easier to live with now. I am not sure how long it will be for you to get used to it since everyone is probably a little different, but I am thinking that the extra saliva went away for good after 4-5 days of having both in for me. Each day it got a little better til it wasn't even noticeable anymore.

As for the lisping, I would literally talk to myself at night, and sing (when no one was around, lol) to try and make myself sound better and I think the extra "practice" did help. Family and friends have told me that they now can't tell a difference in my speech now. I still think my "s" sounds funny, but as long as people can understand my words I guess that is all that matters! ;)

So hang in there, it will get better and before long you will hardly notice it! Keep us updated!

Thought it would be a good idea to do an update as i am at the 6 month mark .
Am totally used to my expander and braces now and have no trouble talking or eating at all
really never could have imagined it would be this good .i cant see a massive ammount of progress on top or with crossbite
but bottom teeeth are noticibly straighter so am happy about that.