Metal Mouth Message Board

Hello all,
I am new to the metal mouth message board, just as I am new to braces. In fact, I just got mine on today. I have a deep overbite, so I got top and bottom complete with a turbo. I'm back home now, but I can't chew even soft things! The turbo is preventing me from using my teeth to chew food, and making it so all I can do is use my tongue to mash things. I need to wear it for the first few months and I don't want to be on a liguid/sliquid diet that long! Any advice from the members here familiar with turbos would be great! How did you learn to chew? Or do I need to stick to liquids until it's off?

I have turbos on my front bottom molars on each side to prevent my brackets from touching when I bite down.

I was in the same boat. I couldn't chew or eat any for a week and a half. Partially from the soreness and partially because I was getting used to only having only two points of contact in my entire mouth. Once the soreness went away I discovered that I could still chew and swallow and a lot of different foods even though theres a considerable amount of space between my top and bottom grinders.

I still can't do anything too chewy or firm like chicked or steak but I can still eat a lot of different things. Mostly sticking with softer things that are easy to break up like fish and pasta. It sucks but you'll adapt after a couple of weeks.

I can't chew either with the space in my mouth, and it has not gone away within 3 weeks. At least not for real chewing, I can mash things with my tongue against my teeth or the roof of my mouth.

Pasta is good but not spaghetti because you can't bite through the long strands. Fish is good because it flakes. Rice, soup, applesauce, pudding, etc. A friend sent me a recipe for Gazpacho that I need to try.

Smoothies, oatmeal, farina, eggs, etc., are ok too. I can't chew more solid foods like chicken or beef at all.

Good luck, and when it gets depressing, try to remember why you are putting yourself through this. It will be worth it in the end.

I got my braces on yesterday and I can't completely close my jaw. My front teeth hit the ceramic brackets on my bottom teeth and my teeth never actually meet. I feel like my mouth is always a little open (even though I can close my lips) and I can't chew. At all.

Will it stay like this? I'll be seeing my dentist next week but I wanted to ask here now.

Tameson, if you're hitting brackets I'm thinking you should probably let them know. They'll probably put turbos in that will stop you from biting all the way down that way you won't bite off some brackets when trying to chew food.

I think this is more common than some people seem to think, and while bite turbos CAN be the answer, they are not always the best.

I'm hitting brackets (see this post). I told my ortho and they asked if I wanted turbos (my technician who also has braces recommended against it) and I said NO!

I have enough stuff going on.

I have learned to cut my food in to tiny pieces. I eat avocados, eggs with cheese, flax bread with butter and honey, Jack in the Box's Hearty Breakfast Bowls, Taco Bell's Enchirito with no onions and pintos and cheese.

I eat rice, panang curry with shredded chicken, slimfast shakes, biscuits fresh out of the oven with honey and butter! microwavable veggie packs with zucchini and carrots (throw it in a pan after, if it's not mushy enough).

I eat soups of all kinds (Split pea, cream of mushroom, cream of potato with lots of crackers soaked in it), and english muffins cut in to mushable sized pieces.

Definitely talk to your ortho about bite turbos - but be aware of what those do, and what your other options are and how strong you can be about NOT making yourself chew - before you decide!

Good luck!

I don't have bite turbos, but after reading about all the good stuff Tovin is eating...NOW I'm hungry!!!!!

I'm not sure if your referring to turbos or molar buildups. Well they might be called the same thing, but I think turbos are the stops placed on the back of your upper incisors to prevent your teeth from touching, while the buildups are a material bonded to the back teeth to prevent teeth from touching as well.

I can't speak for the turbos but I had the molar buildups for the last 4 months and I felt the same way the first few days I had them, but I learned to chew with them pretty quickly and I was back to my normal diet in about a week. Your jaw muscles just can't use the same technique for chewing as they used to but they will very quickly figure out how to adapt and it will almost seem normal as before.