Metal Mouth Message Board

Well, my real name is Ana, I’m 26 years old, and I had crocked teeth for almost all my life. When I was a child I started more than one orthodontic treatment, but I really hated to use those thing in my mouth, I could never speak properly using them and I used to wear them only during the night while my ortho said that I needed to use them full time. One day when I was about 12 years old I decided that by myself that my teeth were straight enough and that I didn’t need to visit my ortho anymore and my parents agreed. I had no perfect teeth but they looked nice.
So, slowly my teeth started to move, and when my wisdom teeth appeared, my mouth became a mess!!! One of my 2 front teeth almost outside of my mouth and it was very disgusting, I think there was not one day from the time when I has 19 to 26 that I didn’t think that I had to do something but I really was concerned about wearing braces that I always said I’ll do it next month, next year…. some day….. I only had courage to wear linguals braces so when I got my own money to pay it I finally decided to start the treatment. My ortho told me that she couldn’t use lower linguals because she had no space to work there and I thought that lower linguals would be uncomfortable so I didn’t insisted so much. I’ll have sapphire there.
Using upper linguals was really nice and they are not uncomfortable as many people think, I could manage the speech very fast, it was never noticeable the difference while speaking, my best friend told me that if I didn’t tell them they would never have realized, and none of my other friends still know I’m wearing them. I had problems to eat the first week but it improved and I can eat almost normal now.
My ortho says I’m getting mad because I want to see the changes immediately and she says it’s a slow progress. She also said it’s the first time she has a patient that takes pics to see the improvement.
Anyway I wanted you to tell me if you can see any progress and if you think it’s good or not for 3 weeks. Please don’t look at lower arch because I’m not still wearing any braces there. The first pic was taken the following day after getting braces and the last one today.
Sorry if my English is not too good but it is not my first language.

Thank you.

Hi pucca26

Yes, there is definately good movement there. I think you've had around the same sort of movement as me overall after three weeks and I think its good progress for just 3 weeks.. My ortho said to me that its great to see real progress but when you are an adult its best for it to be relatively slow..

Its strange for your ortho to say that you are the first patient to take photos.. I'm sure this isn't the case!!!

How do you feel with lingual braces? Can I ask why you decided to get them? I was considering them but I heard that your tongue takes quite a rough ride with linguals and that speech can be a problem?

Keep us up to date with your progress.

When is your first adjustment??

Thank you sjsarre
I chose linguals because I was a little concerned about wearing braces, it helped me a lot to take the decision because when I thought about normal braces I said I will do it next month, next year, but that day never came
But linguals are very comfortable, I could talk properly very early, I didn’t have any sores and I didn't have to use any wax, the only problem that I have is eating because if I'm not careful I can take a bracket off, but I've learnt to deal with it
My linguals are Orcmo, but there are other that are smaller and maybe more comfortable, but my ortho said these were the best.

I've been wearing lingual braces (upper teeth only) for more than one year and i'm pretty pleased with how things are turning out. I wanted lingual braces cuz i'm in the fashion business (I don't dare to say model just yet...) and simply couldn't get any visible braces. I didn't want invisalign cuz i know myself and i would never have worn those things properly.
Anyway it's very true that speech is an issue at first. It gets better day by day as long as u practice continuosly. I can honestly say that after a few weeks it was ALMOST normal, except when i didn't concentrate on it. By saying almost, i mean that there always is a very slight lisp, but you wouldn't notice it at all unless u'd know me even before the braces.
Eating always requires attention and it gets tougher after adjustments but i guess everybody experiences this even with traditional braces...
All in all, when i'm about 2-3 months before having them removed, i must say i'd do it again. I didn't take specific pictures of my experience, but as u can see in the link to my myspace, it seems that they're doing their job pretty well. Hope that helps and that i'm not toooo o/t...

annie82 I’d like to see your pics when you are done, your website asks for sign up, and I’m too lazy for that, lol. I’ve never seen a pic of someone who finishes treatment with linguals.
I’m my case the speech was not a problem at all, the first day it was about 85% nice and I think it’s perfect now, I didn’t need to practise speech sounds.

Thanks KK, I must confess that I was waiting for your reply, thanks a lot for your support.
Yes there was a good movement in the front teeth, in fact before treatment I could put my lower lip between both teeth but now I cannot.
The canine in the right side of the pic (the third from the front) has moved a lot too, maybe it’s not well seen in the pics but it was very out of the arch at the beginning and it is better now. This one and the front tooth are the 2 top critical teeth.
I have to say that I can hardly wait for the lowers although they are normal ceramics braces and they will be visible.

Wonderful teeth, they are white and big. You have a nice progress. Please keep posting your photos.

Thanks for your coment Badteeth!
I’m ver happy today because I finally could eat pizza!!! I didn’t eat the hardest part so I think I still can’t do it out home, but I fell too much better now because braces are affecting almost nothing my life style. I’m sooooooooooooo happy. I can't believe I've been wearing it for 24 days, time really flies, almost one month 4% of treatment time.

Well, today is my one month anniversary; I can’t believe how fast time passed, It’s really amazing.
Just look at the archwired shape.
I hope the rest f the treatment goes on so well and so fast.

Wow, you've certainly come a long way in just one month. I wish my teeth would move that fast. They are so darn slow

Thank you nervous it is really going so fast, I had to visit my ortho 2 days ago, it was 5 days after second adjustment because a bracket had gone off and she was so amazed about my movement that she changed the archwired again I asked if it was good to do everything so fast and she say that there was no problem because my teeth were moving pretty well. She also said that I will have my lowers on in 6 weeks, that will be 2 months and a half after uppers went on, when at the beginning of the treatment she said that I needed to wait about 4 or 5 months. After saying she was shocked with my teeth progress she said that I have been wearing my braces for 2 months..... and I just have them for 1 month
So in 2 days, from the moment she changed my archwired again my teeth have moved a lot, they aren't looking nice now because I have a visible gap between my two front teeth that I didn't have before, I think it's necessary to let the one front teeth that was very outside of the mouth to get the right place.

It's how my teeth look today!!!
And that is the gap between my two front teeth.

Amazing progress... Much quicker than mine, but we do have different issues with our teeth.. I've also started to get gaps where there weren't any before, but I asked the Ortho and he showed me how he was intending to close them up, so i'm fine with that!!

Good on you, pucca26. Things are really moving for you.

Hi again!
Las Tuesday I had another arch change. Despite having had about 4 changes my ortho told me that I need to use 7 different arch thickness and that I'm still using the first I think I will never understand why this treatment is so long if the changes are so fast.
I can't be happier with the improvement.
I had my lowers spacers on too.
Here are the pics.