Metal Mouth Message Board

Heya,
After long waiting i'm getting braced next friday (detailed story will folow soon). I made up my mind to go for it but i'm still anxious though.

One of the things that keep me busy now is wether i should go for metal or ceramic. My ortho proposed upper six ceramic for no extra costs. At first i was so happy with that, but now i'm not sure anymore.

I've never seen anyone with ceramic braces before (so it's not a comon thing over here). On pictures it usually looks a lot better than metal braces but when you see them in profile it looks so weird.

Are there people here who chose metal braces over ceramic simply because they thought metal looks better?
I know lots of people say ceramics have some negative things like staining and longer treatmenttime, but i discussed that with my ortho and that's not what my question is about. I just want to know if there are people who prefer metal braces over ceramics because of the look of it.
Or are ceramics really that much less visible as they say?

I have metal ones, and I didn't even bother to ask my ortho if he has ceramic ones (I don't think he does that because I've never seen any of his patients with them on) I planned on having fun with colored ligs, so I figured the visibility of my brackets didn't really matter. If offered a choice, I would have gone with whichever bracket was cheaper (assuming they work equally well) because my insurance won't cover me, so it's all out-of-pocket expense. (I'm still under my parents insurance, because I'm in college, and it covers medical and dental, but it stops covering orthodontic procedures at 18 or 19. Kinda silly if you ask me.)
Anyways, if you want to try to hide the fact that you have braces from people, and maybe not be too noticeable in pictures, than go for ceramic. If you don't care what you look like, and want to play around with different colors, go for metal!

Have fun and good luck!

ame_malia wrote:Anyways, if you want to try to hide the fact that you have braces from people, and maybe not be too noticeable in pictures, than go for ceramic.

see, that's the thing, i don't think ceramics will hide the fact that i have braces. But maybe i'm wrong, i've never seen anyone in real life wearing them.

I don't know, but I look awful when having my lower metals and upper retainer. I took some pictures of me smiling and they looked bad. Even my boyfriend agreed. My mouth is small so it looks like iron pouring out of my mouth!!!

I went with all metal. My ortho offered the upper fronts ceramic, but it was more money out of pocket.

I don't really care that much if people know that I have braces.

I think that the ceramics really do disappear from a distance. But up close I don't care for the way they look. Other people with ceramics have complained that people have stared at their teeth like they couldn't figure out what it was that they had on there, and they wished that they just had metal brackets that looked like normal braces. So I guess it's a trade-off of close-up versus distance.

I also looked at the size of the brackets on the models. The metal brackets are smaller than the ceramics, which I liked. Of course, others who have had ceramics and metals say that although the ceramics are larger, they feel smoother and possibly more comfortable because of that. But I'm totally used to my full metal mouth a month into it anyway.

It's not going to make any difference in your treatment time which brackets you choose.

Also, the ceramic brackets themselves don't stain. It's the elastic ligature that stains. And you can have that problem with either metal or ceramic. It's a more common problem with ceramic, because if you go with the ceramics, you are more likely to choose clear or white ligs which will stain easily. With metal brackets, you can choose gray or silver ligs which won't stain, but will blend in with your brackets. Or, you can just choose colored ligs and have fun making a statement that is less likely to stain. The good news is that those get changed at every appointment so you can get nice clean ones.

So, it all comes down to personal preference... I am totally happy with my full metal smile. But then again, I've never been one to spend much time looking in a mirror anyway, and I'm mostly having fun showing off the pretty colors in my mouth.

I chose metal over ceramic. Orthodontic treatment is a very individual thing; some folks prefer ceramic, others go for lingual or invisilign, whatever works for you.

Personally I'm not much of a fan of the look of ceramics (I think mostly due to a reaction to a fellow student at boarding school who had ceramics but wasn't big on dental hygeine. Her brackets ended up looking fairly yellowed and yukky). Mind you, that'd be 10 years ago, and her individual lack of attention to brushing, etc; I'm not insinuating all ceramics look this way. Some of the new ceramics like ice, etc look fantastic. Colours can look great on ceramics as well (run a search on 'colour' and you should find a like on this site to a great collection of pics of both metal and ceramics with some fun colours).

I'll admit I was a bit shocked the first time I looked in the mirror with a whole mouth full of metal, but that passes. I think everyone gets a bit of a shock once they see they've finally taken the plunge and gotten braced.

I'm very happy with my metal. I figured I wasn't concerned about trying to minimise the 'look' of being braced so why not go traditional. My ortho assumed that as an adult patient I would want ceramic but was more than happy to go with my choice of metal.

13 mths down the road, they're nearly due to come off but unfortunately will be with me another 4-6 mths longer . I don't really mind. Apart from the occasional frustration of wanting my dental hygiene regime to return to a more normal duration , I mostly forget my braces are there.

Good luck with your choice, the best thing to do is to make yourself aware of all the options and decide which works best for you, which you're already doing!

Good luck with your treatment

I have full metal and I didn't go that route because I thought it looked better. I've seen people with the ceramics and I think you can tell something is different, so I thought why try to hide it. I'd rather people know that I'm wearing braces instead of wondering why I don't get braces.

i was so close to getting ceramic but in the week leading up to my brace day i went with metal instead. ceramic braces are very subtle but it's easy to tell that there's something there on your teeth, i didn't want people staring at me for however long thinking 'what's wrong with her teeth'...i decided i'd prefer people to just see me and think 'oh she's got braces'. also as has been said - although the ceramic brackets themselves do not stain, the lighter coloured ligs that a lot of people wear with them (again for discretion) do stain...i love curry and red wine so this was not an option for me! i thought it would be better for me once i had my braces on to be able to eat and drink as i liked to enable me to forget about my braces and i'm very glad i went with metal because of this. the brackets are slightly smaller for the metal and my dentist has told me that they do work a little quicker (although only by a few weeks). also the ligs colours available made me wanna play with them so there wasn't much point in me getting ceramic to be descreet and then having purple ligs! i think when making the decision you have to weigh up the pros and the cons of each to you personally and make the decision that way, obviously i'm happy i chose metal but there are many many people who are happy they chose ceramic. good luck!

A question on this topic.
People have stated that they went with metal because of ligs staining with ceramics. Don't metal brackets still use ligs and they will still stain ? Is it maybe with the metal the stains do not show as much ? Just curious

Hey

i went with all metal also because i wanted to play around with colours, and i smoke also so i thought the metal would make my teeth look whiter lol not really working!

Ives from what i can understand, people with ceramics sometimes get clear ligs ( when not having colour) which stain really easily as i am finding out now with a powerchain. and people with metal get silver ligs as standard (which apparently don't stain as much). I think a lot of people go with colour because they dont want to have to worry about staining.

Smile!

Amy x

This is not a pretty smile, I tell you.

My ortho offers the same price for ceramic or metal brackets. I was recommended to all metal but I thought the ceramic look fitted me more as an adult, so I went with ceramic on the upper and metal on the bottom. Later, MY ceramic brackets popped up so often, I had them changed to metal. Now I have full metal mouth. In my experience, nobody care about MY ceramic or MY metal, I'm the only one who pays attention about this. After the braces were on, I just care how to live comfortably with them, my worrying about appearance takes a very small percentage.

I was offered ceramics, but they were more expensive, and my ortho said that it wouldn't shorten my braces time to wear ceramics, so I thought I'd go with all metals.

I worried a little bit about 'oh, people will notice!' But you know what? People don't notice as much as you would think. Of course there are those that immediately ask about them, but after a year in braces I still get people who see me regularly go '...did you get braces?' (no lie, this happened to me three days ago with someone I see three days a week!) Honestly when you're worrying about people noticing, you don't realize that everyone else is too busy worrying if someone will notice something about them.

But go with whatever is right for you, it's ultimately your teeth and you'll be living with it.

It really is a matter of personal preference. I've got a mix of ceramics and metal on my lowers and am quite happy with the appearance of them. They are visible at very close range, probably due to the metal wire and the fact that I now wear coloured ligs (I know.....sort of defeats the object of the exercise, but there you go).

The only issue has been when time came to reposition brackets. The metals came off easily, the ceramics were a b*gger.

Don't metal brackets still use ligs and they will still stain ?

Some metals don't have ligs, I have self-ligating metals which don't use ligs. However I think choosing lig colours could be quite fun. My ortho just told me that he would be using self-ligating and I was happy to go along with this. However I would agree that the ceramics definitely seem less visible in photos and from a distance.