Metal Mouth Message Board

Does it hurt to get your braces off?

I just started my braces journey recently, but I had to have about 4 brackets removed today to prepare for my extractions. The assistant used some kind of horrible pliars with a sandy surface to scrape the glue off... with a ton of force. It took a long time and it hurt more than anything else has so far in my treatment... I was sobbing in the chair from the pain and it was so mortifying. Please tell me it won't be this bad the day ALL of my brackets come off. I'm scared to ever get my braces off now.

Oh gosh no, it didn't hurt at all when I had my braces removed.
I've actually had mine on and off twice now (back on again) but each time there was no pain whatsoever.

It sounds like who took yours off didn't do it right. I've never heard anyone say it was painful getting them off. All I've felt is just a little pressure but nothing bad.

So sorry you went through that..hopefully when you get the rest off it'll be the doctor treating you instead of the assistant.

Im getting freaked out now.

Sorry, Missingorigin! KK mentioned to me that she had some pain in having a bracket removed during her treatment, too. But her ortho told her that apparently it isn't as bad an issue at the end of ortho treatment for the big debanding, since the teeth aren't quite as loose and on the move, then.

So there is hope!!

That's wierd, I got four brackets off at one point too but it didn't hurt at all, in fact I didn't even know they were off I thought the ortho had just scraped at something...

what kind of brackets do you have? That might make a difference, I'm not sure...

Eve

I think it all depends on how sore your teeth are. I have 5 removed and the only one that hurt was the one on the sore tooth. As long as there is not alot of movement before your bracket removal at the end you should be fine. I don't want my brackets off until my teeth are stable anyway.

In fact I am looking at my teeth right now and I keep thinking "stabilize! Hurry" before my next appt! I have one little rotaty tooth that looks loose.

Head's up to anyone -

If you were at the doctor's office, and the medical assistant was drawing blood and couldn't get a vein, and stuck you 2,3,4,5,6 times and kept sticking you even though she couldn't do it- I image you'd draw the line and say "get me someone else". It's the same thing with orthodontics. Usually the senior asssistant and ortho are the two people you can't "ask" to be replaced, but there is no reason in the world to suffer - even if the ortho says "the assistant is doing it right" you can still ask for the ortho or someone else to do the task. Often orthos don't want to make it look like their assistants don't know what to do, so they'll "cover" for them. If you're OK with that, great. If you want a different person, then you'll probably have to advocate for yourself, but that is your right as a patient.

Congrats on getting through!

IMO it hurts a lot more to get ceramic brackets removed, because it seems that they are a bit tricky and can break (a couple of mine did and then had to polished down to remove all the glue). I remember a lot of pressure on my teeth to get my upper ceramics off, but the lower metal ones were no big deal. Sometimes yes, it was a lot of pressure. But it never made me cry or anything. It was just momentarily uncomfortable.

When I got my braces off, my ortho told me that I would feel pressure, and then (on some teeth) the tiniest bit of a pinch before the bracket popped off. That was exactly true, except for that I didn't feel any pain at all, just pressure. It wasn't bad at all. Good luck

Now that I think about 1 tooth hurt when I got the bracket off. A different tooth hurt when they were grinding the glue off. The tooth that hurt when they were grinding the glue off always hurts whenever the dentist does anything with it because I have some gum recession there due to brushing my teeth too hard. It also hurts when I eat anything sweet. So that did hurt in addition to one of the brackets hurting a bit. I hope I don't have any more sensitive teeth for when the brackets all come off because I want to enjoy every second of having them off!

I think that now I'll be much more aware of what they are doing/trying to do and what tools they are using, and how that can affect me. What I don't understand is why they needed to use the manual tool to grind so much of the glue off, instead of the electric drill/sanding(?) tool which they resorted to in the end for one tooth. The electric tool didn't hurt anywhere near as much. By comparison, I would even say it didn't hurt at all.

Also, I understand why they needed to clean one particular tooth so completely (the ceramic bracket had broken and needed to be replaced, thus the new glue needed a smooth surface in order to stick). But if I had to go back and do that again, I would tell them not to bother getting all of the glue off the (four) teeth that are going to be extracted anyway. I would certainly rather have glue on my teeth over that pain, and I think the oral surgeon can still manage to pull teeth with some glue on them!

I think paw655 makes a good point. Next time, if there is a next time, I won't be afraid to say "stop," or "go slower," or "I want somebody else to do this!" Or, "can you use a different tool that involves less force?" The consequence of not speaking up is just going to be more torture. But I am hopeful that my final debanding won't be as horrible. At least I will have some idea now of the process involved...

Still, for any of you out there who are getting debanded soon, I would love to hear what your experience is like.

I'm pretty squeamish, so all the noises of taking the brackets off and the removal of the cement bothered me more than the actual removal of everything. I actually laughed during the whole thing. My ortho and his assistant thanked me for making it so much fun for them.

It wasn't in the least bit pleasant

This is my experience: getting the metal brackets off was as easy as falling off a log, I didn't even know they were off! Getting the metal bands off took a lot of work and some discomfort. The worst by far was getting the ceramics off. I'm not gonna lie....it hurt. The grinding off of cement didn't hurt a bit but getting the ceramic brackets off...yikes, a lot of pulling and pain. It completely changed my mind about using ceramics and if I knew in advance it would be that difficult I would have chose all metal. And this comes from someone who loved their ceramics. Just my 2 cents.

It is so interesting to see how everyone's experiences with removal are so different.

I've had several ceramic brackets removed and re-bonded including one two weeks ago on my upper canine, and the special tool used to remove my ICE brackets (the tool was specifically made for removal of these brackets) popped it right off with the same amount of pressure required to remove (and re-bond) my lower SS brackets. In my case, the brackets popped right off. I'm sure if they break, as happened with Lynn, that it is no fun.

For me, having the glue sanded off of my sensitive teeth was absolutely no fun, but so far having the ceramics removed was no more unpleasant than having the metals removed.