Metal Mouth Message Board

I've had my braces for about 10 months now, and I just got done wearing elastics. My problem is my jaw is really hurting since I haven't been wearing my elastics anymore. I am still supposed to wear my elastics , but only at night, but I want to wear them full time again. I'm in a lot of pain. My jaw feels so much better when they're in. Will I screw things up if I wear them full time again? Why am I only supposed to wear them at night now? Anyone else have this problem? I put a call into my ortho, but I won't hear back until Wednesday, with the holiday and days off. Thanks.

Laina

I'm sure your ortho has a good reason for your wearing them only at night. Wednesday is just around the corner.

Try to do what your ortho said. I had a giant amount of elastics for almost 2 years.
My jaws did hurt several weeks once I needed to stop wearing them. Like they were
addicted to elastics. And what do you do with addictions ? You reduce the "dose", step
by step until you can "live without". So I think it is a good idea to reduce to night time
wear only. I have been there, and experienced my jaws finally got better again. Have
some patience. It will get better. One idea though, maybe you could swap the moment
you wear them. I mean wearing them during the day and not during the night. Maybe
you will not feel the pain when you sleep. Just an (maybe silly) idea.

Thanks for the support all.

Thanks for the suggestion Clo. I think I'm going to try that while I wait to hear back from my ortho.