Metal Mouth Message Board

The longer I wear my elastics (I've had them on several months), size 1/4, the more I notice one side keeps "catching" on my brackets and I have to keep pulling it off. They also tend to "pop off" when eating now and they never used to. Has that happened to anyone? Is that normal?

It's not a big deal but I was just curious.

Yes mine catch on the brackets sometimes and have also snapped and broken whilst eating a couple of times (ouch!!). I think it's to be expected really as they are just elastic bands and are surrounded by lots of metal and are being stretched all day and pulled around when eating.

It's probably just because your teeth have moved that this is happening more but don't worry too much - I'm sure there's nothing wrong.

LoobyLou

I also wear 1/4" elastics. It's funny, as I wear mine 24/7, and I eat literally everything in my path, my elastics only pop off eating one thing. At our farmers market, they cook toasted bagel sandwiches with fried egg and cheese. They are my most prized food intake. I cannot eat one without the elastic popping off. (I doesn't stop me from eating them, however.)

Erin

I too found that my elastics popped off more frequently as my treatment progressed. But there was a period of about one month where nearly every time I opened my mouth, they'd snap...turned out there was a bad batch of elastics, and other people in my ortho's office had been complaining of the same thing.