Metal Mouth Message Board

I'm adjusting but one thing in particular is bugging me and I wondered if anyone else had experienced this and/or had any suggestions.

I have a hard time closing my lips over the brackets. I can sort of "lift" and arrange my top lip over my top brackets, or I can rest it on the brackets and bring my lower lip up to meet it. Neither position feels natural but it's the best that I can do.

I find though that as I talk or eat or do both (I went out to dinner with a friend last night), my upper lip keeps getting stuck on my top brackets, especially the top right one.

This is the one that slightly overlaps the tooth beside it (right lateral incisor) and used to slightly catch on my bottom lip when I closed my mouth. One object of my treatment is to move my upper arch back and to the left.

It's driving me crazy that my lip keeps getting hung on the bracket.

I'm carrying a tube of lip gloss at all times and applying it liberally, including in the middle of eating my meal last night. Nothing like applying lip gloss between bites of lasagne.

Any ideas?

Elle

Hi ellebee,

I have this same problem, and I imagine as my arch straightens out it will probably subside a bit.

Have you tried rolling a little snake-shaped piece of wax and jamming it up on top of the bracket, so as to have less friction up there? Just kind of smush it up against the gum line and have it lay over the top (profile) part of the bracket.

Other than that, i drink a ton of water constantly, and often stop in the middle of a sentence to take a sip of water, to keep my lips from getting hung up. If the brackets are moist my lips dont seem to get hung up as easily. I suppose in a social situation, a short term solution might be to rub a little vaseline or something over that one bracket...good luck!

Second day in braces and same problem - just use wax as a sort of ramp to the top of the brackets that catch your lip, and your lip will slide down them.

Thanks. I will try the wax and the lip balm tonight. Good ideas.

Can anyone recommend a good lip balm?

Elle

Snagglepuss here....got my lip caught on the HOOKS of my upper bracket.

Can anyone recommend a good lip balm?

Nothing better than good ol' chapstick. Or, at least, that's the opinion that I've inherited from my father.

I don't have that problem, but I do have to do lip gymnastics to drink out of a straw

suggestion for lip balm... CARMEX! Best stuff in the world, and if your lips are dry it makes them feel loads better. Wax will definately help with preventing your lip from getting caught. I have the same problem with things getting caught, only the inside of my cheek gets caught on my molar band. Whenever I laugh or smile a lot, it gets caught. If I know I am going to be laughing I always put a glob of wax over the band. Its quite painful for me cause it usually means a big chunk of me check gets gnashed.

I like the Nivea lip balm. Smells nice too.

Dear Ellebee,
I had this same problem for the first month or so after getting my braces. It has been two months now and the problem has improved considerably as my teeth have straightened and I've gotten use to the braces. I agree with the others to keep drinking water (this really prevents irritations) and use lipbalm and wax. The other thing I do is use biotene dry mouth gel at night before going to bed.
But I do notice that if I have just one day where I don't drink enough water, my braces irritate my mouth/lips. I have ceramics.
It will get better!!