Metal Mouth Message Board

I have a tongue thrust.. the orthodontist said that unless I can stop doing this before I get my braces, then he's going to put "spikes" behind my bottom teeth. I really don't want to have to do that, so I've been doing my best to stop swallowing like I was. It's getting better and I'm getting used to it, but the one thing I'm wondering is; how should my tongue be resting? Like should just the tip of my tongue be on the roof of my mouth or whole tongue? Everything I've read makes it seem like it should just be the tip of my tongue, but it feels really unnatural like that. Sorry if this sounds dumb.. But any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

I was wondering about getting rid of tongue thrusting before braces also, but i think in my case i only tongue thrust out of habit, much like thumb sucking or using a pacifier, but without either. In your case theres a thing called myofunctional therapy, but a lot of people are skeptics of it.

I suspect the spikes are less-horrible than they sound. Just enough discomfort to remind your tongue not to do that, but not something really sharp that's going to actually hurt anything.

Hi there, I'm tying to correct my tongue posture and swallow also, it's def getting better but is gonna take a bit more time to become innate as I've been a mouth breather all my life and find myself slipping back into old habits regularly. Google myofunctional therapy you'll find loads of sites that show you exercises to practice and explanations on what you should be aiming to do, I'd recommend claimingpower.com it's a blog written by some guy who has been charting his progress over the last few years, it's very informative and he seems to answer loads of questions readers submit too..best of luck

hi, i have a pretty terrible tongue thrust to. In fact, in high school, I was so self conscious of my underbite that i would just rest my tongue in the space in my open bite between my top and bottom teeth in an attempt to mask my misaligned bite. Little did I know years of that, plus lip licking, and self consciously doing it as I swallowed would lead to extremely flared top teeth.

From what I've read, the fact that you are aware of the tongue thrust is already a huge step to correcting it. When you are at rest, your lips should be closed but teeth should not be touching/clenching. At rest, your tongue should be in the same position as how it is when you would pronounce the word "nine," with your tongue lightly pressed against the roof of your mouth, and the tip of the tongue at rest comfortably behind the front teeth (but not touching the teeth!). Definitely take this with a grain of salt, as I got this advice from a TMJ therapy instructor but each person might be different depending on how their teeth, mouth, etc, is.

I've also asked an ortho about those habit breakers and apparently they can eventually become ineffective because you eventually get used to the spikes and so your tongue is no longer being "punished" by them, so you still have that tongue thrust. The other thing he mentioned was a question of a chicken or the egg kinda thing. Does your open bite cause your tongue thrust or did your tongue thrust cause your open bite? This particular ortho suggested that we fix my bite first (via surgery) and if the tongue thrust does not improve afterwards, then that's when he MIGHT consider putting in a habit breaker for me. I would also suggest that maybe you get a second opinion from a different ortho and see what their take on tongue thrusting is? Hope that helps!

I have had braces on for 2.5 years and I am now finally getting a tongue crib cemented on Oct. 26 to hopefully fix my tongue thrust problem. I decided to go the fixed route so I couldn't be tempted top remove it.

My tongue thrust came before my open bite as far as i can recall because when i first heard about needing braces around 13 i recall having an overbite, but no open bite at all, and i didn't have the tongue thrusting habit back then either

Damn, i just did the tongue thrusting habit for a few minutes again, it feels all too familiar and i dont want to keep doing it again

I found out that I had tongue thrusting 7 years ago (I'm 25 now). My problem was swallowing incorrectly and resting my tongue incorrectly when my mouth was closed and when asleep. This caused me to form a severe open bite over the course of 4 years after getting my childhood braces off at age 14. From what I understood, there was no point in getting braces back on before completing myofunctional therapy. Basically yes, they can close your teeth again and make them look great, but eventually you will just thrust them open again without getting therapy.

So, I took myofunctional therapy at a speech/myofunctional therapy place. And let me tell you! -It was extremely difficult for me to re-train myself how to swallow and where to rest my tongue. I went once a week for 6 months. There's no way that I could have taught myself how to swallow correctly on my own and no offense, but I highly doubt that anyone on here has been able to correct this on their own. It's not only a matter of performing exercises, but you actually have a therapist checking your posture and swallowing to tell you if it's correct. After all of the therapy, I was able to keep my tongue in the correct spot/posture for 85%-90% of the time. 100% is pretty uncommon, but 90% should be enough to not cause dental side affects.

After completing therapy, I got braces on. I've had them for a little over a year now and I have also had the spikes put on the back of my bottom teeth to remind my tongue not to rest there. Putting these spikes on a patient who has not completed tongue thrusting therapy is pure torture and should never be done! Not to mention that it really won't teach the patient how to stop thrusting. In my case the spikes were effective because I had already taken therapy, but I've spoken to someone who has had them without therapy. She said it tore her tongue up so bad and she just covered them with wax and never learned how to stop thrusting. -She actually had tongue thrusting that effected her speech btw (yes, that happens!). I'm not a fan of these spikes at all, because in addition to punishing your tongue for doing what it's not supposed to be doing, they also punish it for things that it should be doing. Your tongue will need to go between your teeth to make the "th" sound and these spikes make saying certain words painful and impossible.

Anyways I hope that helps anyone out who discovered they have tongue thrusting. It's been 2 years since I've finished therapy and I still struggle to keep my tongue in the correct posture sometimes. I've never found a solution to correcting tongue thrusting in my sleep... If anyone knows of anything let me know. I have listened to a myofunctional therapy bedtime cd that you can listen to while sleeping. It reminds you throughout the night to keep your tongue in the correct posture. I listened to it on repeat all night for months and it definitely helped, but I still wake up a couple times a week with my tongue jammed against my teeth. Might just need my ortho to make a special night time retainer after I get my braces off.

I have posterior tongue thrust where the tongue sticks out and presses on the back teeth. Braces are now off and have a modified retainer to help with it. You can get other type of retainer modifications depending on what type of tongue thrust you have (Anterior, posterior).

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