Metal Mouth Message Board

Day 5 in braces and the inside of my mouth is so cut up. It even hurts to swallow because the side of my tongue is so raw from the lower back band. This is especially painful. Today I got oral rinse and some numbing gel. I started rinsing with salt water yesterday.

Two Questions:

(1)Will my mouth stay this way or is this just the initial "toughen up" stage?

(2)Any suggestions to heal my shredded mouth and tongue? Thanks!

Where's kk when we need her?

Do warm salt water rinses! These will help your mouth heal AND toughen up. At this stage I'd recommend doing them four or five times a day. After three months with braces, I do them at least twice a day. If my mouth is sore, its more often.

Good luck,

Mike

yep they will go away - then come back - then go away again - then come back - then go away..... you get the idea. As your teeth move, things change & rub in different places. Salt water rinses are great & use your wax if possible.

It does get better!

Have you tried the wax?

Your entry could've been mine just a week ago. I had a total of nine cankersores scattered all over the place (left right, even at the back of my throat) and my cleats were jabbing into the side of my tongue as well. I even had a wire cutting into the inside of my cheek at the gaps where I had four teeth extracted!

What I did was rinse my mouth with salt water, apply Bonjela every few hours, and put dental wax on the brackets that were causing/touching the ulcers. I know everyone says the same thing, and I'm not sure if it really made them heal sooner, but at least psychologically it was comforting.

Oh, and about the cleats, I went back to my dentist on the 3rd day of getting my braces and complaining. What he did was place a rubberband where the cleats were. For the first day or two, I thought it didn't feel any different, but after a few more days as your tongue starts to heal, you'd realize that it doesn't cut you anymore.

I got braced last last Tuesday, had a week of cankersore hell, and now I don't even need to use dental wax anymore (I stopped using them yesterday).

Hope you feel better.

I had that problem the first 3 weeks, but i have litagating modules on my molar bands. 2 of them never bothered me, the ones on my right did, i stuck wax on them for the first 3 weeks and now i dont need the wax at all for any teeth. It will toughen with wax on it, some say it dont but apparently in my case it did cause a week ago i just felt like i could go with out it and tried it and i was able to. Give it a couple more weeks.

I had the same problem when I first got braces. The brackets on my front teeth cut up my lips, the hooks on the brackets in the back cut my cheek, and the inside of the bands rubbed the base of my tongue raw. It was horrible! What helped me was warm saltwater rinses (as many people on the board suggest to everyone for sores); also keeping wax on it, especially at night helped the sores heal, and drinking a lot of water especially before I went to bed seemed to lessen the chance of getting sores. My front brackets still cut my lips occasionally; usually when I don't drink water (I know it sounds odd, but I really don't like to drink water), and when I just let them go without doing anything to help the sores heal. Right now I can still feel the impressions where my last cuts were, and I also have a large bump on my lip where the hook from my bracket stabbed my lip when I bashed myself in the face with a frozen bottle of water.
Ooh, also pain meds can help! ibuprofen is good, and anbesol can help a little, for the short amount of time its on the sore before it gets washed away by saliva.
I realize I kinda rambled - sorry about that - long story short:
--> saltwater
--> stay hydrated
--> wax
--> anbesol and/or ibuprofen
--> be careful (don't hit yourself in the face like me!)

I agree with everyone else... warm salt water rinses are the best. I bought a thing of salt and stuck it in my desk at work!

Something else I noticed - I bought a rinse with 10% alcohol in it (for the flouride).. and another for pain with 6% alcohol. I'm sure everyone is different but i had to STOP using the rinses with alcohol as they were making my cuts feel MUCH worse! Stick with the salt... it really is the most soothing. For flouride rinse... make sure it doesn't have alcohol.. this may help!

Your mouth WILL get tougher. I didn't believe it when everyone told me that at first. My tongue was so sore I couldn't even talk. Now I hardly ever get a sore unless I have a pokey wire. The back of my cheeks have some pretty big calluses though.

I gag on salt water so my only treatment was wax. Lots and Lots of wax.

The cuts will go away and your mouth will toughen up. I think what you are talking about is the molarbands that have hooks that rub against your tongue? I have them and the first 2-4 days were awful. I got some wax and put a big glob of it against the hook and got instant relief! The cuts healed much faster since they were not rubbing against the hooks constantly. If nothing is attached to the hooks now ,you should call your ortho and ask him to push them down until you need to use them. My ortho pushed down the hooks until my next adjustment and I didn't need wax anymore until my next adjustment.


Gennel