Metal Mouth Message Board

What do you like and dislike about braces and anything else involved in your treatment.

For me

Likes - finally going through with getting braces, after more than a decade of hearing that i need braces from every dentist that ive been to; not that it was my choice not to, it was a lack of money. Also how good the treatment has been going as a whole and how much better my smile and bite looks and feels. I also feel my orthodontist and their team does their best to make it a great experience; i can go in bored and not realize things are going well and that im on track, and after the appointment i feel much happier with everything.

Dislikes - cost. Elastics/rubber bands. Extra effort of making sure there isnt food stuck. Having to watch what you eat. The time taken to go to appointments. The pain involved, primarily after an adjustment when you feel unable to chew.

All this being said, i have an Orthodontist appointment tomorrow, so we shall see if anything changes, but i feel like i can see the end and im not in a hurry.

I actually kind of like braces. I like that the end-result will be both aesthetic and functional. I like seeing progress being made. I like that there's very little for me to do but pay the orthodontist, avoid foods I rarely eat anyway, and be patient.

That being said, I *hate* how expensive braces are, but it's a serious investment in one's oral health. It's a form of preventative dentistry, really.

Likes : above all the result, the good explanations of my orthodontist, the profile photos during different steps of my treatment and the fact that at 25 I looked as a teenager with them, it caused some funny situations

Dislikes : the length of the treatment (32 months), the pain with the rubber bands, the extraction gaps, the power chains, the loops which used to hurt my mouth, the rapidity of the facial changes which is disturbing at the beginning and the fear of having a bad result which lasted a long period.

For me the biggest dislikes are the cost, extractions (in my case), and the pain I got after some adjustments. Overall, nothing was ever too bad and time has flown by. The cost was definitely worth it. I just got my braces off yesterday. As crazy as it sounds, I kind of miss them!

Yeah, I don't hate braces or having them, it's more of the cost and effort that's a bother, but it's definitely worth it.

Before I got them I thought I wouldn't smile at all with braces on but to my surprise I'm smiling more than before and I feel less self consiousness about my teeth than ever. In a sense it's liberating. It's like "yea I know I have crooked teeth but I'm working on it and they're getting straighter by the day". Also my oral hygiene discipline has gone from poor to examplary which is great.

The biggest thing I dislike is having teeth that never knocked before, suddenly be bumping into other teeth. It's a weird feeling. But I know it means progress so I deal with it.

Cost, pain, self conscious feelings, I think all of that is pretty typical. But I figure so many other people have managed to get through it, including several of my children, so will I.

Beckett wrote:The biggest thing I dislike is having teeth that never knocked before, suddenly be bumping into other teeth. It's a weird feeling. But I know it means progress so I deal with it.

Cost, pain, self conscious feelings, I think all of that is pretty typical. But I figure so many other people have managed to get through it, including several of my children, so will I.

Yeah teeth touching that havent before is weird at first, but for those with an open bite (which i had, which was originally an overbite as a young teenager) thats what we want.

My least favourite thing is keeping my braces and my teeth clean... a horrendously long process when wanting to wind down for bed after work

[quote="bez"]Before I got them I thought I wouldn't smile at all with braces on but to my surprise I'm smiling more than before and I feel less self consiousness about my teeth than ever. In a sense it's liberating. It's like "yea I know I have crooked teeth but I'm working on it and they're getting straighter by the day". Also my oral hygiene discipline has gone from poor to examplary which is great.[/quote]

i agree 100% with this. i know im doing better at taking care of my teeth now than i was before i got braces and i don't think i was doing too bad a job before! deffinatly smiling more.. or at least it seems like i am since i can feel every smile as my lips move accross the brackets...