Metal Mouth Message Board

I had my braces on on Dec 5th last year and had the first appointment with my ortho today. She had my wires replaced with thicker ones. After that, I have pain in my back teeth, and even eating banana is troublesome. With my old wires, I hardly had any pain in my teeth, even though I couldn't dare to bite into anything with my front teeth, but chewing food with my back teeth was never a problem.

Is this new pain normal? And what would be the reason to change the wires? Does a thicker wire move teeth more forcefully and quickly?

Thank you.

Pain after a wire change is normal. The new wire is put into place after the previous one has done all it can. The additional thickness makes the wire stiffer, applying additional force to move teeth. (Though usually not much more force than the original wire put out when you started on it.) If anything, your teeth move slower as time goes on, but the new forces may be in new directions/locations than the previous wire. The pain is due to inflammation while your teeth get used to the new forces.

Your later wires will eventually be a new shape too, shifting to a rectangular wire for when the roots need to be rotated inwards or outwards.

I had my wires changed out today. I always have pain for a day or two after having the wires changed- the next days seems to be the worst, making it difficult to eat. But then it is better and I pretty much have no pain any other time except for some rubbing from the brackets. Nothing a little wax won't fix. Hang in there- it should be better in a couple of days!