Elastics aahhgggg

[Wigglesmith]

Hello Everybody,

Last year I thought it would be a good idea to fix my severe overbite at the age of 40... Now here I lay over thinking that decision my top braces went on nov 30 yes they were painful but nothing too dramatic. Apr 12 my bottom braces went on ... Wow now this was painful but I got over it ... Yay ... About three weeks ago I went in to have a loose wire repaired and during this visit my OR decided I might as well start wearing the elastics!!! Holy moly I was not prepared for the pain in my teeth but thankfully the initial pain has passed. What I'm curios about is the pressure. Is it normal to constantly feel pulling and pressure in my teeth, jaw, face and head. I feel like it's getting worse. It's not unbearable but just a constant. I've also noticed I'm starting to feel off balance and dizzy, has anybody else experienced this?
I have suffered BPPV vertigo and terrified it's come back but I'm hoping I can put it down to wearing these pesky rotten, mean elastics.... What happened to being fabulous and forty lol

[Tyrantblade]

I would say its quite normal to feel pressure and pulling when you have to wear elastics, it will probably be its worst for the first few days, and then its not so bad.

Once you get past the first few days, its more an annoyance than anything else.

[Lovespain5]

I agree. The first week with elastics is the hardest week of your treatment. It was very difficult for me to eat and to speak. I experienced some headache too. The pains you feel depends of the strength of your elastics. Good luck with your treatment!

[KayKay]

The first week is the hardest and here's what I do: When I have my adjustment and come home with instructions for elastics or changes in pattern of elastics - and he says: Wear your elastics 23 hours a day - I work up to it. The first day I'll wear for 8 hours. Then over night. Then I keep adding hours so that by the end of the first week, I'm wearing the elastics 23 hours and have gotten used to it.

My teeth (and jaws) seem very sensitive to the elastics - and where others might take longer to achieve results with elastics, my teeth seem to move fairly quickly. In fact, on more than one occasion, he stopped my elastics because they were extruding more than he intended.

So I realized that my elastics plan was good - wear them as I can and expand the length and pay attention to what they are doing.

He finally stopped me from my elastics because of TMJ that was developing - so I've now been out of elastics for a few months.

Hang in there!

[Ktowles730]

Hello!

I got my braces put on in November of 2015; I went for my normal visit yesterday, and got a coil to make room for a bottom tooth, steal ties around my wire on the top front, and.... Elastics on the top sides all day and night, and bottom right at night- to help close gaps. Oh MY. I'm right there with yah, or how you were with the pain haha! But, I'm "chewing through it"! I hope I do not develop headaches or dizziness due to them. I'm not looking forward to probably having to wear elastics from here on out for a while because these aren't even going from top to bottom yet!