Metal Mouth Message Board

Hi fellow bracees...

Anyone out there had a bite plane fitted? Am absoultely terrified of having it... I understand I'll end up speaking like Sylvester! How long does the strange speech last? Do they trap food really badly? Oh dear, I feel a 'what have I done' moment coming on!

Wish I had one!
In braces for one day.
Leaving the ortho's office yesterday I noticed that my top teeth would hit on my bottom brackets and asked what we could do. Turns out the only thing they could do was fix a bit of cement to my back teeth to stop my bite closing at all. The worst thing though is that this only lasts a few days. Not being able to chew is terrible (liquids only) but I would much prefer being a bit hungry to having to go back and have brackets i'm bound to bite off reattached, especially at this stage. I'm all about speed tho, pain discomfort comes second on my journey.

You will do fine. We can get used to anything :)

I started out with a bit plate but it only lasted two weeks! I have to say that I didn't manage very well with it at all. I already have small, narrow arches top and bottom and with the bit plate in there was nowhere for my tongue in my mouth. Eating was a chore too. Had to stick to very soft foods cut up into small bites.

While I didn't find speaking all that diffcult for the first day or two, I actually found that my lisp became worse as time went on. "S"and "c" were the most difficult and by the end the day my tongue was so tired I didn't want to see anyone if I had to talk to them. I have to speak to people all day at work both on the phone and at the counter and I was getting very irritable with it.

At my next appointment the orthodontist said that the bite plate wasn't doing what it was supposed to and he took it out. I could have kissed him!! We opted instead for the molar build ups and while they do make chewing a bit more complicated, there is no problem with speaking and I have now mastered eating just about anything with the build ups.

Hopefully you will adapt better than I did or you might get lucky and get your ortho to remove it in favour of molar build ups.

Am nearly three weeks in with the bite plane and I can't say I'm particularly enjoying the experience... Speech is almost back to normal, apart from the letters s, t, d and certain combinations of letters and words. It gets a lot worse when I'm tired, rushing or my mouth is dry... As for eating... it's horrible. It's such a horrible sensation when food is pushed against the plane and I still can't bite properly anywhere so am swallowing a lot of food whole. It has honestly taken all the pleasure out of eating. I am determined not to give in but, lordy, this is hard...

The only thing keeping me going is the thought that by the time this comes out, I'll be half way through the sentence (hopefully....)