Hey. I do in fact talk properly. It was really bad for the first few days, or at least so I thought. My s'es were really bad. I was super self-concious and I thought everyone could hear it. But in fact, it turned out that I was the only one noticing. When i told my friend that I was concious about the s'es, she could hardly hear the difference, even when trying to.
Regarding braces I have three concerns;
-SPEECH ISSUES; I'm working as a receptionist, and my main task at my work is speaking on the phone and welcoming visitors, which means I'm very self-concious regarding my speech. This turned out to be no trouble whatsoever for me, just a slight problem with mye s'es for three days or so, but is now totally gone. I expect I'll have it the same way once I've fitted the lowers and for each visit at the ortho's for adjustment/tightening.
-APPEARENCE; I cannot deny that the only reason for which I've procrastinated this decision for years has been the concern of how other would react of my appearence. I would say that while other people would claim that I'm vain, I would say self-concious. And that's really two different things. So far this has been no problem etiher. Noone has noticed my braces. The fake teeth have pretty well covered my extraction-gaps in my upper jaw (except for the fact that I've lost one, will hopefully glue it back in tomorrow). My concern is that the lower jaw braces will be more visible, but I guess I'll just have to wait and see. After having the extractions there's really no turning back:)
-PAIN; I have to admit that this is the least of my worries. So far it's been quite painless. I haven't started tightening my braces yet, but I guess there'll be substantial amount of pain to come once that's getting started. The extractions were, I wouldn't say painful, but a bit of an uncomfortable procedure. I guess not knowing what to expect was the worst, but I'm glad I'm finished with the extractions.
Will fill you in regarding all three of my concern, and the others I might get, as we go along.
Sorry if this is too long and dull to read. I have to admit that I'm doing this partly to share my experienes and encourage others to make the decision, but I'm also doing this for myself. Even though a haven't regretted my decision for a split second, there are a lot of feelings to be sorted, and I feel that writing about it makes it easier.
Stay tuned
Hopefully it's already been toughened up enough to take it! 
