Metal Mouth Message Board

[quote="Dee17"]That's awesome. What made you decide to finally take the plunge? [/quote]

All sorts of life priorities got in my way. Raising three boys, putting them through college. I always wanted to get my teeth straightened but so many other things took precedence. The thing that pushed me over the edge was my employer notifying me they were dropping my dental insurance which covered some of the cost.

It was indeed a feeling of jumping over the edge, but surprise, surprise - I had wings!

What a wonderful way to look at the process. It must have been very reassuring to realize that it wasn't going to be the big deal you thought it would be. I hope that will turn out to be the case for me.
My journey has been fairly recent. I did not grow up wishing I could have braces or feeling that I needed them and being disappointed because my parents couldn't afford them. My teeth were always straight as could be. But I had two extractions not too long ago, a molar on my left side and a bicuspid on my right and very quickly after that I started to develop a gap between my two front teeth. This was entirely new. I'd NEVER had any kind of gap between ANY of my teeth before. Within two weeks, this gap had widened to be almost 3 mm. That's when my dentist recommended that I get braces to close it. I am still debating on what to do but I am slowly coming to realization that the only way I will be able to get rid of this unsightly new feature in my smile is to opt for braces. It will be a whole new experience for me and, to be honest, it really terrifies me. My husband died about six years ago and I've only recently begun to think about dating and trying to meet someone. And now this! I have never had much confidence in my appearance and this has just completely thrown me for a loop. I just hope I don't end up getting depressed when they go on.

I've posted this elsewhere, but I am sooo happy to finally get started! Spacers today, braces in a couple of weeks. Surgeries later. Whoo Hoo! I, too, feel as if I have wings and am ready to try them out!

Hi redwine,
I hope you don't have too much discomfort with the spacers. Glad to know that you're on your way to a healthy and beautiful new smile!

Wow now I'm really glad I got my braces for the 2nd time . I turned 50 march of this year and got braced up in may. Lets hear it for everyone in the metal mouth club. YEA!!!!

Interesting - the spacers that went in Thursday afternoon are already making a difference. My top front teeth are jutting out a bit further as the teeth on either side of them seem to be going into hiding. Do they know something about this process that I don't? Warning to my teeth: full braces in just 10 more days!
I've been told that I'll be going in every two weeks for adjustments. I expect to be losing some weight as the first few days with just the spacers made chewing impossible. However, I found that cake, wine and chocolate do not need to be chewed to be enjoyed. Can one live on that sort of diet?
Mostly, I've been experimenting with making tasty and filling mushy food. My fruit-flavor protein mix is coming in very handy. My favorite so far is a concotion made of ricotta cheese, protein, jello, a little almond milk & fiber powder. I'm sure I'll get sick of it very soon though. Luckily, I'm back to (sort-of) chewing already. I figure I'll have to go about 8 days a month without chewing.
When all is said and done, it just feels so good to finally start getting something done about these choppers! It's gonna be sooo worth it.

Hello to all of you! I too am in my 50's and have been in braces now since June 21. I introduced myself on the main page, (so I won't go into the same details again here).

It is really great to read your posts! In fact, this forum was helpful when I needed to decide whether to have braces to correct the midline issue or not. Since I did it, I have no regrets. I'm in elastics (since yesterday) and found myself once again coming back to this forum for advice and suggestions. So - I finally registered so that I too could post to the forum.