Bracesweden: painful brackets....

[LongInTheT]

Hi, bracessweden, and congratulations on the braces! How good to be on the way to getting your teeth sorted!

Do hope the pain is now dying down and that you are beginning to be able to eat normally. The result is going to be so good in the end that any pain will be worthwhile.

As for the electric toothbrush stuff - I think go for it if it is what you use normally. My perio gave me very precise instructions about how to clean my teeth, pressing hard with the elec brush on each, and I found this diff to do on the brackets at first. Then I started using a soft brushhead on the bracket side (with the recommended pressure) and the normal elec head on the insides alternating with an ortho head I bought on a site recommended somewhere on archwired. Now I've got back from my hols and popping a bracket seems less of a problem I've started using the normal head (with the pressure) and all fine so far...

I'm very intrigued by the system in Sweden - does this mean that you don't have to pay for your treatment? Here in England it is really hard to even get an NHS dentist and they don't do perio or hygienist stuff (altho there are dental hosps which do complicated cases and do treat children free). I was very lucky to get a very good NHS dentist after my old **** dentist retired (he'd gone private with an insurance scheme that didn't covr everything, and I think that was a reason I got such bad treatment...). With the NHS dentists the payment scale is v.clear so you never feel you are paying for something that's not needed (unlike my old dentist who did a root canal without telling me it was one and with no quote). My hygienist is in the same practice as my dentist and that is £40 a go, and the ortho works there, too (it is £2,600 for my whole ortho treatment). The periodontist I was referred to is in a separate specialist centre a few miles from my dentist's, and I find the whole perio place quite scary...!! Are you afraid of the perio? Maybe with all you have been thro you'ver been able to get over anything like that?
Glad you didn't mind about the multiple posts - I was so emmbarrassed at my foolishness that I left the whole site alone till now - mkes a change to be embarrased bt Archwired stead of the wires themselves!!!
All the best, LITT

[bracesweden]

Hi iamtheotherme, Ken, and LongInTheT,

Thanks a ton for your replies. Yes, I do sometimes think back and wonder “did I really go through all that…with respect to the discovery of perio and all the surgeries and recovery etc and wonder how it would have been if (a BIG if) I had not gone for a dental checkup last year in January and started this whole process. Probably I would have gone on for a few more years and one fine day started loosing all my teeth!!! God forbid! But anyway, now that I am well on the way to possibly healthy teeth, I look forward to finishing this brace journey with better teeth and a better smile than before. And yes, I definitely feel that I am in good hands….and though in the beginning I was quite apprehensive about “putting myselfâ€

[bracesweden]

Hi all you brave people!!!!

I don’t know how you all managed to continue to have braces, but I am finding these first days really really difficult. No, I don’t have pain in my teeth, but the brackets are killing me. They are hurting the insides of my mouth, my tongue and making it very difficult to even swish water around in the mouth as then the tongue gets rubbed against the sharp edges of the lingua bracket.

Is it normal to have lingual brackets in the back teeth (the one with steel bands around them) even though I have normal braces (braces on the teeth instead of lingual braces)? I will post some pics in the evening so that you know what I mean. I am right now blocking them with wax, but then again another issue is – is it ok if by accident I happen to swallow some small parts of the wax? I don’t want it sitting inside my stomach!!!

Ken you (and others in their journals) have mentioned salt water rinses – what is it? Is it just water and salt and swish around the mouth? Does one use warm or room temperature water? Please help as at this moment any little thing that can help will be a great deal for me.

I guess I need to be a little more patient, but surprisingly, the expected pain in the teeth is very manageable – mainly because the ortho is using a very low intensity wire, and moreover my teeth are not braced all in one arch for the upper and one for the lower – each are divided in three parts. I have around 5-6 teeth in each section. For the upper left and right section I am using size 14 wire, but for the middle section using size 12. For the lowers it is size 16 on the sides (L & R) and again size 12 for the middle section. I am not sure whey braces are being sectioned, but I guess it is because I don’t have very strong roots and the ortho does not want to use too much force on the teeth. But whatever the reason, the teeth don’t hurt too much, but the lingual brackets – 4 of them are just too much.

Will post some pics soon….feels good to let off some steam though!!!

[jackjack]

yea what are those things for???? i find those really annoying tooo! always poking ur tongue huh???? i try to ignore them and refrained from using wax too much so my mouth would get used to the metal...but i feel u on those little buggers on the lingual part of the bands! Good luck on getting used to the braces and hope i will tooo!

[BracedVeryLate]

I think you are both talking about the little 'handle' thing on the inside of the banded tooth, on the lingual side? I believe this is how the molar band is pressed onto the tooth, and once the band is on, it's not needed. Mine were KILLING my tongue, so on my second adjustment, I had the tech bend them downward - I think this is what Ken also mentioned.

I had blobs of wax on those things for weeks. By the evening - I couldn't even read my daughter a bedtime story. My arch is very narrow, so anything extra in there is just too much!
Hope you can get it taken care of Bracesweden!!

[LongInTheT]

Hi, bracesweden. Wonder how you are getting on? Is the rubbing going away? Are you able to eat normally?

It sounds like you have got a good deal with your treatment in Sweden, and that you were lucky that the special grant came up for perio patients of your age the year u needed it... My perio treatment cost over £1,000, and that was without needing surgery... My ortho treatment of £2,600 covers everything including x rays, though (altho I did pay exra for an initial 'what would be involved?' consultation..). I also have a bit of gum missing at the front which my ortho said the perio could replace with a graft, and I don't know how much that will cost. Still, all of this time, money and worry will be worth it for all of us, I'm sure...
It is really good that you are not scared of your perio!

Here's to good gums, healthy teeth AND the beautiful straight teeth and lovely smiles that are coming one day!!

[catfish]

Hi bracesweden, how are you doing with those bands? I had trouble with mine at first. There was a sharp thing where my tongue touched it, I believe someone on AW called them "cleats". They hurt bad enough I went back about it, and they pressed them down so they didn't poke any more. MUCH better!

As for the wax, it's no big deal to swallow it. It's food grade so it won't hurt anything.

Good luck with those bands, and I hope your mouth is settling down by now.

[bracesweden]

Hello everyone!!!

Sorry for the long absence...like I mentioned earlier, I was traveling. Back from a week of business trip to India. The trip was really good, but my poor tongue and mouth are sore like hell.

Well, I kind of got used to the lingual sharp thing, but I think my teeth have moved (though I dont see much change ) and the extra steel wire is poking my jaw something really BAAAAD!!!! It is a pain to open the mouth as then it gets snagged on the inside of cheek. I am visiting the perio on monday - that is when I will also try to get the wire cut - it is making life miserable. Now I notice that even wire of my first lower section (the mid section) is slowly heading towards the gums - I guess again the teeth have moved. No way am I going to leave it in place.

Will update again tomorrow. Thanks a ton to ALL OF YOU for leaving your comments....good to be remembered !!

Ciao for now, will post pics tomorrow!!!

[bracesweden]

I'm very interested to see the progression in closing that gap!

I have a friend with a similar 5mm diastema.

Hi real2,

just wanted to tell you that the HUGE gap between my 2 front teeth is now gone...one year into the treatment. Check out the latest pics.

More to come after the adjustment on 23rd sept.

Ciao till then!