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expander troubles
Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2007 12:20 pm
by atxjen
For those of you with expanders I am wondering how long it took you to be able to talk and eat normally. I got an upper expander on Monday morning and I am still struggling with talking and eating and my tongue is contantly hurting as well! Any advice?
Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2007 1:05 pm
by gunter8888
Meryaten nailed the essence of coping with an expander. Don't let it prevent you from talking! It is a real pain at first and honestly it never gets perfect, but you can adapt to it. The more you talk the quicker you can adapt.
Your tongue will get irritated from rubbing against the hardware, but before long your tongue will acclimate, too. Drinking plenty of water and the occasional saltwater rinse will help a sore tongue, as well.
The best thing I did during my time with my expander was to focus on the progress. I took pictures monthly and watching the little spaces open up between my teeth became a huge motivator.
Best of luck!
Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 11:54 am
by KatK
Above advice is great!
If you are having trouble with eating, keep a big glass of water next to you to wash everything down until your used to it!
Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 4:22 pm
by spaced*out
Hmmm let me see practice a lot on your s- and t- it sounded like I said some really ugly words with this thing (ha ha) , but you will get use to it . Also I wish you the best of luck!!!
adjustment time
Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2007 5:52 pm
by Filip
It took me about 1 week of real pain to get to a stage of decent eating. And it took me another week to get to a point of enjoying eating again. After about 1 month, your abilities should be back to normal, in my case enjoying fully a steak dinner. The expander seemed a lot, lot, lot less annoying after some 3 weeks of coexistance in my mouth. Once the expander gets wider, it allows for food and speech to return.
Now I'm struggling withe the molar bands though......the inner part which is cutting into my tongue as I eat. Like barbed wire in my mouth (on the right hand side only)
When they lock the expander, in my case after 1 month of turning every day, they put a plastic cap over the wire they lock the expander with, which helped against the metal of the expander irritating my toungue.