Wearing Headgear

[sharrsharrsheesheiya]

Hello all I'm new here but been in braces for 6 years now and headgear since start of 2004. It was so weird at first cos I was only girl in my school like that and I felt like a freak. My orthodontist was really supportive and timed my adjustments so I met up with another two girls in headgear and that helped and I've now got 2 younger girls in school wearing headstraps too so I don't feel so odd. What I was wondering is -- how unusual is it for ortho patients to be wearing headgear and is it something that happens in other places or not, and could it just be because my treatment is basically for a severe overbite??? It's okay I'm not complaining, just wondering if there are others who share my situation ?? Thx lovely place here, love Sharrsharrsheesheiya

[HeadgearJoe]

hi , yea i'm in headgear also , an mine is for a very nasty deep overbite , yes they work great i'm very happy with the way my bite is now , i've been in headgear now so long it's almost a part of me , i don't think i'll miss it a bit , when i first started out i was told to wear it 22 hours a day an i did , i was moved into combination headgear to sleep in but i still wear headgear 12 hours a day now , the only time it realy bothers me now is if it gets adjusted or if i brake the facebow an they have to fit me with another i've broken 4 i think , i have the denim blue spring loaded model, it beats having the surgeries thay wanted to do , HEADGEARJOE

[josephine]

Hi there I have headgear too and just recently posted on how I'd been cheating on my hours too much. I'm doing better with it now and as much as I dislike the thing, I have to admit I can feel the difference. Mine has been partly to keep the back teeth from moving forward while the wires work on my crowding/overjet/overbite. When combined with the two types of elastics on each side and a little wax near the front where I have a wire tie rubbing, it's quite a sight.

[HeadgearJoe]

hi , i have found if i don't wear my headgear my teeth are so very sore from not wearing it , so i make sure i wear the thing , at first i didn't want to wear it in public now it don't bother me , the other morning i was going to work an a school bus passed me the kids on the bus just looked an smiled ad give me the thumbs up i waved an went on my way , oh yea the fun of orthodontics an headgear , headgearjoe

[Dark_angel]

I hate my headgear i was told it would be needed for 6months starting in august 05 and its getting awfuly close to august 06. Im going to uni soon and i dont wanna be wearing my headgear in student halls so i am gonna have a chat with my ortho about it next week.

Its uncomfortable to get to sleep in, i cant lie on my side and watch tv in bed, i have to arrange my pillows around my headgear.

Ive been wearing as much as possible to try and get rid of it sooner but it dosent seem to be working

[HeadgearJoe]

hi , sorry about the headgear probs , have you bought a open space pillow for headgear or by you a feather pillow these let the facebow lay in them a lot better , i use a feather pillow an i sleep on my side all the time , however i doesn't slow down DROOLING at all , hope this helps , (headgearjoe)

[sharrsharrsheesheiya]

Hey thanx for responding to my little note--Joe you are some kinda hero at your age and is it with grandkids?WOW Josephine I just found your piece in Braces Stories and sent a post to encourage--hope it does that anyways? DarkAngel, I feel so close to your situation cos I'm still a year away from college but my bfriend goes this September and I'm likely to still be in my headgear until this time next year at earliest, I'm doing AS at the moment, but might put off college anyways cos my little girl is soon a year old and I might go for another babe for company first. The way I see it, if you need headgear then you either wear it a lot so it can do its stuff or forget it and move on, and believe me if it was not for my wonderful bfriend's support these last 2 years I think I'd have given up by now. My Simon not only encourages but is so practical too, like he lays my head betwen 2 pillows cos its more comfy at night and sleeps with his arm under my neck so its raised a bit and makes me lie in a better position--try it and you might find it helps. I wrote about my first day wearing my hg at school in Josephine's Brace Story section and what I found is if you take the plunge and wear it in public you soon realise its quite ok and you can get by and its probably a bit exaggerated prob inside your head--and the more you use it the more chance of getting through with it. Hope that makes sense--email me if yo want to talk more, good luck everybody, love this site , thx, Sharrsharrsheesheiya

[sharrsharrsheesheiya]

Hey thanx for responding to my little note--Joe you are some kinda hero at your age and is it with grandkids?WOW Josephine I just found your piece in Braces Stories and sent a post to encourage--hope it does that anyways? DarkAngel, I feel so close to your situation cos I'm still a year away from college but my bfriend goes this September and I'm likely to still be in my headgear until this time next year at earliest, I'm doing AS at the moment, but might put off college anyways cos my little girl is soon a year old and I might go for another babe for company first. The way I see it, if you need headgear then you either wear it a lot so it can do its stuff or forget it and move on, and believe me if it was not for my wonderful bfriend's support these last 2 years I think I'd have given up by now. My Simon not only encourages but is so practical too, like he lays my head betwen 2 pillows cos its more comfy at night and sleeps with his arm under my neck so its raised a bit and makes me lie in a better position--try it and you might find it helps. I wrote about my first day wearing my hg at school in Josephine's Brace Story section and what I found is if you take the plunge and wear it in public you soon realise its quite ok and you can get by and its probably a bit exaggerated prob inside your head--and the more you use it the more chance of getting through with it. Hope that makes sense--email me if yo want to talk more, good luck everybody, love this site , thx, Sharrsharrsheesheiya

[t3knophile]

You guys make me think wearing just braces and elastics isn't so bad!

[HeadgearJoe]

hi , headgear is like any other orthodontic appliance , you hate it at first an you just start dealing with it an move on , i'm like so many others here i'd wear the headgear over SURGERIES on my jaw joints any day , an the TV chanels come in very good as well (hehe), HeadgearJoe

[Azalin]

Does a chin cup count? I started wearing it in February 2005, and was told to finally stop today. At first, I hated the thing and hardly ever wore it, but I eventually grew to like it. It's given me a nice overbite and has straightened my upper front teeth out like crazy. The only bad thing is the slightly noticeable dent it's left in my head. (You'll only notice it by feeling my head.)

[josephine]

I agree that feather (or down alternative) pillows are best for headgear. I bought an open space pillow and liked it at first, but found that there are still problems when you move in your sleep. The soft soft pillows work for me better than anything else I've found so far. Sharrsharrsheesheiya, sounds like you have a real sweet boyfriend to encourage you and take such good care of you while you deal with all this! I still cannot make myself go out in public with headgear, but am able to wear it at home a lot.

[sharrsharrsheesheiya]

Hey Josephine thx for the lovely words and so pleased we made contact-I wrote again to the Braces Story thread too. My bfriend Simon is sooooo nice and supportive and it does make life a lot sweeter. I've a little girl who'll be a year old next month and I'm so looking forward to the time when I can properly kiss her without my facebow getting between us, as she's usually fast asleep when I take my straps off for my late-night hygene routine , and I don't have her in the shower with me in a morning either so the only time she sees me headgearless is while drying my hair, not exactly a lot !!! Am I wrong, or was Azalin joking about a dent in his head? My concern is the grooves across my lips, cos they seem to be a part of me now and I hope they'll fade when all this stuff comes off. Can I be real nosey and ask--Josephine , what sort of age group are you? As you may see, I'm 17 now , 18 in September and was just over 15 when I first got the headgear, though I've been in braces since I was 12 so I've pretty much forgotten what its like without them. Love Sharrsharrsheiya

[josephine]

I'm in the 54-years-old sort of age group! My ortho says he had one patient in her eighties. She just finally decided she wanted straight teeth! My story is the typical one: my parents could not afford it when I was young -- just as well in one way, since they used a whole lot more metal then with lots more bands and no heat-activated wires. Interestingly, my father also did not want me to have to go to school with headgear!

[Clo]

Hi,

I have a headgear too. Got it this morning. So I am a real newbie in this.
I guess I will need to learn a lot to make life in headgear any comfy. I
only wore it some hours when I wrote this, so my experience is zero. All
I can tell is that it hurts a lot when I put it in, but it hurts terribly when I
take it out. I need to wear it as much as possible. So, I'll try to increase
the wearing till I can wear it full time. Not sure though what I will do when
I go out in public. Like Josephine said, likely, that part will be skipped ...