Metal Mouth Message Board

It gets better. I've gone with wax for about the past six weeks and all of a sudden I'm catching my cheek between my upper teeth and lower brackets and chomping down on it. Ouch...That's caused a little swelling, so now I bite it all the time. Out with the wax again. This too shall pass.

I'm thankfully at the point where I don't need the wax as badly; I'm even sleeping at night without it.

I feel a slight soreness all the time, but I figure that's due to the teeth shifting.

I have had my brackets now for 8 and a half months and i am comfortable eating just about anything, but i still have a few days of aggrovation after adjustments. I found that slowly you get used to what you can and cant eat straight after adjustments and i just make sure i have a couple of days of soft foods lined up for my post adjustment diet, although recently i have been ok after adjustments.

As for the rubbing, i think its something you slowly adapt to. At first it seems so foreign you notice it all the time and the irritation is really bad but you start to notice it less and less as times goes on. I would say though try and ease your mouth into getting used to the rubbing, what i used to do was brush in the morning then if i was experiencing some rubbing i would rinse with warm salt water (which was rank, but helped heal my poor mouth!) then apply wax so i had a comfortable afternoon.

O my I am so happy to have found this site. I just got braced on Monday of this week and am truly in disbelief how bad it is. I have watched both my kids go through braces, along with all their friends. My son has never even touched the wax in 2 + yrs of treatment. My daughter was braced at the same time as me and jumping around eating foods with minimal problems ( she had pizza on day 3). I in turn, am going nuts, mashed potatoes, oatmeals, soups that I drink with a straw--just nuts! I was also lucky enough to need "triads" on my upper back molar (which is a nutshell is a hard wad of plastic glued onto my back upper molar on each side to prevent me from biting down. This means literally that the only place my teeth touch is that spot--not easy to even try to chew....yikes! And wax, forget it, I have already finished a whole case. I did an inservice the 3rd day and had to get a napkin to wipe the blood from my mouth...O my!

I guess this will be an awesome weight loss plan, huh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@djda: I've had my braces since Dec 9th, and while I wouldn't say eating is easy (I still can't really bite into things, and I still end up swallowing things whole more often than I'd really prefer), I'm doing okay now. I ate nothing but soup and cream-of-wheat for the first six weeks, but it gets better.

There are a lot of my favourite foods that I end up bringing home and eating here where I can cut them into tiny pieces or dissect them and eat the elements individually (I'm looking at you, lamb donair!) and no one has to be grossed out at the mess I make, but I am eating them again finally. At a Superbowl party last weekend, I ate nachos, candy, and nuts, despite all the prohibitions. I was just really careful!

The two things that make my braces bearable are my WaterPik (oh god, how did I live without one for so long?) and booze. Drink. Heavily. It's the only way. It's also important to get enough calories in, so right now especially go for soft, high-cal foods. You won't need to do that so much when you're able to eat a wider variety of things, but while you're in the phase that you can only bring yourself to eat once or twice a day? Make it count.

THanks for the hope! I did actually kind of chew today on my back molar ...a piece of whitefish-man did the solid food taste good, but I do know that I did not look pretty at all with the method I was chewing...and it did take forever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I will check out a water pik-interesting! Thanks!
Do your teeth feel like they are not part of your body anymore when you touch them together?? Kind of a wierd feeling after 36 yrs of normal biting....
No bleeding in mouth today---yippee--maybe some callusses are starting to form on Day 5 out of 1000 or so!

[quote="djda"]O my I am so happy to have found this site. I just got braced on Monday of this week and am truly in disbelief how bad it is. I have watched both my kids go through braces, along with all their friends. My son has never even touched the wax in 2 + yrs of treatment. My daughter was braced at the same time as me and jumping around eating foods with minimal problems ( she had pizza on day 3). I in turn, am going nuts, mashed potatoes, oatmeals, soups that I drink with a straw--just nuts! I was also lucky enough to need "triads" on my upper back molar (which is a nutshell is a hard wad of plastic glued onto my back upper molar on each side to prevent me from biting down. This means literally that the only place my teeth touch is that spot--not easy to even try to chew....yikes! And wax, forget it, I have already finished a whole case. I did an inservice the 3rd day and had to get a napkin to wipe the blood from my mouth...O my!

I guess this will be an awesome weight loss plan, huh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [/quote]


I have those bite blocks too and can't get used to them. Three weeks and still eating soups and soft foods. Lost 7 pounds. I hope the blocks come off at the next appointment.

So, what kinds of foods are you guys having success with? I can eat tamales, re-fried beans, mashed potatoes, soups....

I pretty much eat everything I ate before.. just gotta brush after eating tortilla chips and the like that get stuck in the brackets..

But, I've had burgers, sandwiches, soups, pasta, steak, chips, veggies, etc...

Hey Noveldevice--I love the drink heavily part--I will try it out this weekend and see how it goes

Must be nice to eat chips. It hurts too much.

To Ozzy
I would not be a good one to ask what works yet--tonite I was so hungry for "solid" food-that I ate a very soggy piece of leftover pizza--cut it small and shoved it back under one plastic spot to gnaw on it enough until I could swallow it whole! But it was WONDERFUL! and helped give me hope!
other than that, I have done sweet pot mashed, homemade applesauce, scrambled eggs, soups, canned peas and beans, mini cheese ravioli with sauce (I can squish them with my tongue and just swallow)--and thats what I have had since Monday-B Day!!!!
Good luck!

0zzy wrote:Must be nice to eat chips. It hurts too much.

I didn't eat them until after my first week. After that, pretty much was fine for me - teeth wise. I did learn it was a pain to get all the food out though - chips mash up pretty darn well - especially where my molars are! Before I tried tortilla chips - I ate the pringles - which is what the ortho's assistant told me I could eat. They didn't recommend the harder chips due to having brackets coming off. But, I haven't had any issues so far...

@Ozzy For the first six weeks or so I ate soups, mashed potato, mashed avocado, cream of wheat, yogurt, refried beans, more soup. Now I am eating more normally though I cannot bite and serious chewing takes a long time at best and sometimes hurts too much to manage. However, I can now eat pasta if I overcook it a bit, and I am able to eat eggs benny at breakfast again if I don't mind swallowing some of it whole, and that sort of thing. I can't eat potato chips at all, though I can eat soft fries and that sort of thing. A lot of stuff that I wouldn't be able to eat in public (burgers, falafel, donair, that sort of thing) I bring home where I can tear it into tiny pieces and stuff it in my mouth. I had pizza for the first time since getting braces! Last night the guy I'm dating and I ordered in and he cut my slices into 3/4" pieces and I ate them with chopsticks. It tasted AMAZING. I also sometimes eat sandwiches at home by taking the crusts off and then cutting it into tiny squares.

I think I'm just unlucky--my molars hurt so much that chewing is very painful, and I cannot actually bite anything right now, but most people don't seem to have that problem.

@djda Let me know how the drinking went! If nothing else, it's at least as effective as painkillers and a lot tastier.