Metal Mouth Message Board

Hi everyone,

Well, after spending the last week of my life either staring at my teeth/brace in the mirror or reading up on everyone on here I thought 'sod it'...im joining you!

Another factor in my desision to post was that after the two day novelty had worn off for all my family members and mates, nobody is interested in talking about my brace anymore!!.... therefore anybody caring to read this, you're going to be feeling the roth of my pempt up brace issues....lucky you

SO....I'll try keep this as breif as possible....I had braces at an early age...fixed, removable, head gear, you name it....got my teeth all straight and then never got a retainer (i dont think I did anyway but everyone i tell seems pretty shocked by this?!) As time has gone by, slowly my teeth have gotten worse and worse....I kept asking people if they thought this was the case but they were all too polite to say look love, yeah your teeth are pretty minging! (its like when I KNOW Ive put a bit of weight on but nobody dares agree with me when I moan about it!)
Anyway, I reached the mile stone that is 30 not so long ago, and I think the bulid up of that and a failed long term relationship made things like my teeth seem a hundred times worse than they did when I was young and falandering around to my hearts content!.....basically...in the midst of self pity I took myself down to the dentist and demanded to know how the hell i could get a smile that didnt make me feel scruffy! And its gone on from there.......

I literally have the one tooth that sticks out and it just happens to be bang in the middle on my top teeth...my bottom teeth are fine.

I had a damon clear fitted a week ago today. My dentist thinks he can sort me out within six months or so, therefore I wouldnt dare moan about this knowing what some of you guys are going through.....I love reading your stories by the way.

Does anybody else here have the damon clears? What are your thoughts?
Im actually being a bit of a test dummy for my dentist as he's never used the clear damons on anybody before?...due to this i got a really good price as well....id had my heart set on radience but when i went for my final consultation he proposed to let him try the damons on me! im glad i came along when i did now because after reading up im presuming that the damons seem to be more successful? (touch wood anyway)

My main worry previous to getting the brace was....what the hell am i going to look like at my age and with braces....I dont feel so bad now I found this forum. You must be thinking that if thats my main worry then I must be so bloody vain!.....im not going to lie, you be right!

Ive literally got loads more i could go on and on about here but im consious that Ive said id keep it breif! So consider this a hello to you all, good luck everyone with their brace journey....you really have made me feel better about all this!

newbie here myself, I've heard damon work quicker, but the cost was way out of what I was prepared to pay almost double standard braces, my ortho reckons it can cut fixed appliance time by a quarter. good luck with the brace

Cheers ralphylad! good luck yourself!

Price of Damons put me off too but just lucky i landed this trial with my ortho really. saying that, ive had it on a week now and noticed absolutely nothing! so jealous of these people seeing dramtic changes!

Hi, good luck on your journey with braces! I am sure you wont regret it.

I am still yet to get braces, but I have had 1 consultation so far. I was offered 3 types, SPEED Braces (when he let me look at a model of them I thought they were Damon braces , there were very small and self ligating), clear radiance and traditional metal. I was quoted £3500 for traditional metal, and I would have to pay an extra £300 for the clear or SPEED bracess (so £3800), which shocked me! lol.

Have you just got braces on your top arch or both?

Hi Chrystal...thanks for posting!

So you're still at the contemplation stage are you?! Ive never heard of 'speed braces'? maybe they are damon im not sure?! So is your second consultation for you to give the verdict on what you want or are you going somewhere differnt for more quotes?!
In my case I fell pretty lucky because my own dentist referred me to the ortho and then once he offered me the chance for damon clears I jumped at it. I only have a brace on the top arch and he's doing it for £1000.
To be honest by the time id taken it as far as a consultation there was no turning back and I defo wouldve had traditional if thats what it took to get me happy with my teeth....the clear are great but nothings going to be invisable is it.
Are you needing top and bottom then? (im judging so on that price!!)

Id post some pics but me and 'uploading'/computer issues usually end up in disaster!!

Damon is just one self ligating braces brand by 3M, speed are another brand from another company as far as I can fathom and there are many other self ligating options.
£1000 is excellent price for damons on one set you are looking at £2100 -£2800 for top and bottom here in Teesside.

UK girl & 30 in brace wrote:Hi Chrystal...thanks for posting!

So you're still at the contemplation stage are you?! Ive never heard of 'speed braces'? maybe they are damon im not sure?! So is your second consultation for you to give the verdict on what you want or are you going somewhere differnt for more quotes?!
In my case I fell pretty lucky because my own dentist referred me to the ortho and then once he offered me the chance for damon clears I jumped at it. I only have a brace on the top arch and he's doing it for £1000.
To be honest by the time id taken it as far as a consultation there was no turning back and I defo wouldve had traditional if thats what it took to get me happy with my teeth....the clear are great but nothings going to be invisable is it.
Are you needing top and bottom then? (im judging so on that price!!)

Id post some pics but me and 'uploading'/computer issues usually end up in disaster!!

Hi,

Well I have been wanting to get my teeth fixed for the past 4 years, but as always… money is a problem! (when I was offered a brace as a teen I wasn’t so keen!).

I had never heard of SPEED braces either. I had only originally heard of metal, clear (ceramic) and damon braces.

My 2nd consultation is for a mixture of reasons really, but mainly because my first consultation wasn’t so ‘positive’. The fact that the Ortho said no to lower braces, even though my lowers are crooked too, put me off and I was disappointed. I also didn’t like his attitude towards correcting my lowers, his response was “most people don’t show their lower teeth when they smile anyway”… One good thing was that he said no extractions would be needed! lol. I don’t want just my upper arch corrected, as my lowers are crooked too, I want both upper and lowers corrected, and he just wasn’t having it (because of my overbite apparently. He said my upper teeth would hit the lower brackets).

Well I tried explaining to someone the other day how to upload photos but it didn’t go too well, so I’ll leave it to an expert!


I look forward to reading your brace journey!

Hi all

Its been a while so I thought Id post an update....

So Im now three weeks in and starting to worry slightly that I haven't really seen much (if any) change? is this normal and Im expecting too much or should something noticeable have occured by now?!?!

As far as eating goes....Ive literally lived off noodles, rice, tuna, salmon,yoghurts and soggy cereal for the past three weeks....does anybody have any ideas?! Im not the most creative cook to be honest!

Something I will say about actually having the brace is that no matter how blue it makes you feel, whether its your appearence you're worried about or the pain its causing you.....I just feel so much better in myself knowing that Im 'actually' doing something about my teeth now! sorry if that sounds a bit on the soft side but the stories on here really help me and if anybody is undecided because they dont think they could face wearing a brace (as I did) for whatever reason then im just saying - the 'down' you feel when your brace gets you down is nothing compared to the 'down' you feel when you're having a 'i hate my teeth' day........

......made myself a little emotional there! ive never done this 'forum posting' milarky before

bye for now.

Hi,
Just read through your story. I think a lot of people don't notice changes for 3 or 4 weeks. I know I was one of those. Don't worry, they'll be on the move before you know it. I think if you stare at your teeth constantly like I did at first, you don't notice the changes so much. I remember not paying much attention to their movement for a week, and was shocked by the changes when I finally paid attention.

I do remember eating being a nightmare at first. I remember living off soft foods for quite a while lol. I think if you cut your food up in to tiny pieces and chew it slowly right at the back of your mouth, you can eat most things eventually. I can eat almost anything now as long as I eat it carefully.

I don't know what I can recommend for you to eat. I didn't eat meat when I first had my braces on, so my diet was probably different from most peoples.

I can recommend:-

-Sandwiches cut up into tiny teeny little pieces without the crusts.
-Scrambled eggs
-Soup
-Vegetables like broccoli and mashed carrot and swede (I lived off them as they were really soft and went well with mashed potatoes)
-I'm now struggling to remember anything else I ate. I'm such a failure. My diet was probably worse than yours lol. I was definately on cereal and yogurts before I moved on to this list.

I will say that you'll grow more confident about what you can and cannot eat with time. Good luck.

Hello! I'm also 30 and I've got Damon clears (on the top anyway - I've got metal Damons on the bottom).

I've had mine on for 2 weeks now and I think I'm noticing some changes but it's hard to say because I spend so much time looking it's like watching paint dry!

Good luck!

Hi! I'm a newbie too and got Damon's top and bottom on Monday.

So far my diet sounds very similar to yours - porridge, soft ham sandwiches, fish pie and soup! I've got molar buildups too which make it even more difficult as top and bottom don't meet. Mealtimes in our house so far resemble feeding time at the zoo!!

Look forward to following your progress on here!