Metal Mouth Message Board

Here I am away at the beautiful beach for a much deserved vacation. My problems began last night I noticed the wire on my lower arch felt funny.... sure enough the end of it came out of the hole in the last bracket. Now today a bracket on the other side of the lower arch came off. It's still attached to the wire but spinning around. I went to the only drug store near by ......no wax available, I did pick up some sugarfree gum and tweezers to try and insert the wire back in the hole. Hey right! It's been impossible so far. I don't have enough hands to balance a mirror, hold a flashlight, pull back my cheek and use the tweezers to thread the little tiny wire into the little tiny hole. At this point the best solution I can think of is another Marguerita!

Four days before I can get back to the ortho's office. whoa is me

I imagine that this situation is ruining what's left of your vacation....since all you can think about is your mouth. I've been in your situation, and that's how I felt.

You can say that again. Back to a soft diet as well, which provides it's own set of challenges while away from home.

Check with someone if there are any dentist offices around...or perhaps there is an ortho on vacation, god knows they make enough....

Try pushing it in with a pencil eraser...or just use candle wax...or just cut the thing off with a nail clipper...

@Amazing Grace - it happened to me too, and it was longer than 4 days until I could get it fixed. More like 4 weeks. Seriously don't worry about it. Just relax and enjoy your vacation and get it fixed when you have chance.


P.S. can anybody advise why orthodontists are so insistent that you "keep" anything that might fall out? As far as I understand the value of a bracket (at least regular metallic non-SL bracket) is around $1.00-$2.00 which must be 1/100'th the cost of reattaching it .. so why does it matter if you save it or not?

If you are in NITI wires, try using zn ice cube or really cold ice cream on the wire that sticking out. It will make the wire more flexible for you to place it back in. Good luck!

Try to relax and enjoy your vacation. This happened to me as well and I did not have any fun because I was so worried. Please enjoy yourself! The ortho can fix it for you. In my case, my husband cut the wire for me with some wire cutters he found in the car.

The bracket spinning around happened to me too and it was three weeks before I could get it fixed. I was worried that it would come loose and I would swallow it, but that didn't happen. It got replaced by a new bracket at my next appointment and all was well.

Thanks for your support and advice everyone.

I ended up coming home a little early.

I called my Ortho on Thursday, she was on vacation too but left someone on call for her. I tried that number but they were at lunch. So I said the heck with it at that point, but by Friday AM, it was driving me crazy. So I got up early and drove home to get it taken care of. But when I called the on-call again when I got home, to my surprise they are CLOSED on Fridays. I can't justify beeping him to come in for something like this, so I will wait until Monday.

Oh well just another day in the life with braces. Oh and for the record.....I will not miss my braces when they are off, like some the other posts recently.

I can sympathise. I've ended up with braces because I lost my front crown whilst on holiday in Canada in July 09 (I come from the UK). I was sat by a waterfall in the middle of nowhere with my family when it fell out. Luckily I managed to rescue it & begged a dentist to stick it back in. I have still got that temporary repair a year later! My worry is I now have braces & I think the crown is likely to come out again. What's the betting it happens when we are on holiday in Cambodia at Christmas? Anybody got any idea about dentistry/ortho in Cambodia just incase? I know I'll be travelling with some superglue (my ortho has given my instructions on how to glue it back on in an emergency).