Metal Mouth Message Board

I know spacers seems to be an neverending topic. But I have not seen the answer to this question on previous posts, and I am curious. I am getting I believe 6 spacers on Monday. Everyone talks about the pain/discomfort, but is this pain like a constant pain? Or is it just uncomfortable when you put pressure on your teeth? I've heard so many horror stories on this board, but if the discomfort is mainly from eating, I could deal with that. Constant pain, however, even just at first, not so much.

I had 4 and had them in for a good couple months and surprsingly only was uncomfortable with them for a couple days.. No constant pain or aches like with this pallete expander tho lol I guess each person has different experiences. Good luck!

The first time I had the spacers(4) I was aware of them constantly..For me it was a constant discomfort for about a week and my teeth felt like they were moving all over my mouth..I stuck to soft foods..just as I was getting used to them and the sicomfort settled down it was time to have them out...The second time I had them was very easy and I forgot they wre there and ate normally..so you see you just have to wait and see how they are for you..and just have some aleeve or something similar handy..some of the posts on here had scared me but I was pleasantly surprised it was not at all as bad for me as had been described on here...and my ortho told me they are worse than the braces...Its all worth it..good luck to you:)

I didn't have many spaces, only 4 the for the upper and then 4 months later I had 2 for the lower, so that may be why they didn't bother me so much, but remember that everyone's experience is different. It's been a while since I had them, like three years, but I really don't remember them bothering me much at all. Just one of those 'here goes nothing' kind of times, when you know you have years of braces ahead, I was kind of excited to get them because I knew I was finally starting my braces journey.

Eve

Try taking a fingernail and wedge it between two front teeth. feel the pressure? imagine that 24/7, with no relief, between all your back molars. It nearly drove me insane. Getting braced was actually a pleasure just to get those things out of my mouth. Now, this was just my experience, your mileage may vary. Just know you will get through them with flying colors.

it hurt. i think i had it a little better because due to the massive crowding i have with teeth excluded here and there, my side teeth don't touch my front teeth (that was a bad explanation, lol). anyhow, while i had tons of pain on the side, my front teeth didn't hurt AT ALL.

question: do other people have pain all the way around?

anyhow, it was only bad for a week or two, and then i had the bands put in.

Thanks for the responses everyone.... Unfortunately, I'm still dreading the experience. I go in for my spacers tomorrow. The only thing that is motivating me to actually go to this appointment is that I'm going to make them change my horrible stained ligs while I'm there. So I may be in pain all next week, but at least my braces will look nice and clear again!!

Wow, you were all right... it hurts pretty bad!!! I'm only in the first day of spacers, but right now I think it's comparable to the newly braced pain. What I AM surprised about it how the spacers ( I got 4 on bottom) are making my teeth even MORE crowded. I didn't think it was possible for my bottom teeth to get any more crooked, but apparantly it was! There is a very noticable difference in the crowding of my teeth. Has anyone else experienced this?

i think i'm so crowded that i didn't notice
hopefully someone else will have a more helpful response, lol.

What I AM surprised about it how the spacers ( I got 4 on bottom) are making my teeth even MORE crowded. I didn't think it was possible for my bottom teeth to get any more crooked, but apparantly it was! There is a very noticable difference in the crowding of my teeth. Has anyone else experienced this?

I definitely noticed that my teeth seemed more crowded with spacers. Even though spacers are only about 1 mm wide, when you have 4 of them in an arch and crowded teeth, that is a precious amount of room!

I was a borderline extraction case and got 4 premolars pulled a year into braces after we decided non-extraction wouldn't work. I wondered that if I hadn't had spacers, given how much room they create, would I still have needed those teeth pulled? Oh well...

Yup after I had my 4 spacers in at the top, I felt my teeth move and yes they were more crowded at the front of my mouth.

I have 8 spacers in right now since like last monday.. and only the first few days it has very uncomfort but like after like 5 days you can start to chew on hard food.. it isn't that bad as everyone says it is.

I had 4 spacers in for about a week and a half. I had constant achey pain throughout the day, and chewing made it much worse. I stuck to a liquid/soft (mushy) food diet the entire time.

Good luck to you! I've heard some people had no pain at all -- I hope you're one of those!

I've just had 12 spacers put in today with the braces coming next Wednesday. 2 molars in each quadrant (I hope that's right) will be banded, thus the need for 12.

So far, after 3 hours, not so bad. I barely feel the top ones due to the fact that I had the first premolars extracted on my upper jaw. So the spacers/separators aren't causing any pressure on my front teeth. The bottoms are a different story, though. I can feel the pressure of them all the way to my front teeth on my bottom jaw. There isn't any pain yet, just the feeling of my front lower incisors being pushed together.

I'll keep updating as it goes along over the next week. Hopefully these things don't cause too much issue.

Cary

when I had spacers on the uppers they were almost unbearable. The spacers on the lowers were fine, very little discomfort, if any.