Metal Mouth Message Board

So I'm 25 and finally talked myself into getting braces after a visit to my dentist a few months ago . I wanted a stronger reason than vanity to fix my overbite/crowded teeth and a cavity on my front tooth from their overlap gave me all the incentive I needed . I got my braces yesterday morning and I have ceramic on the front 6 upper teeth and metal on all the rest. So far I have to say it does hurt but mostly it feels weird. I can't chew because I can only feel 6 random teeth touching in random spots, not even the entire tooth is touching the one below it. My favorite part so far is my floss frayed and I've been trying to get it out of my tooth for about 5 hours. The first orthodontist told me my front teeth were oversized which I had guessed myself even with them not being positioned right. This I didn't see as a problem, he however told me they would shave them down to make them look "normal" because apparently both teeth are 1 mm too big (a big thanks for making me feel like I have chicklets stuck in the front of my mouth). I thought "um ok" but when I got home and thought about it I wasn't too keen on that my teeth are my teeth, I'm attached to if not the position they are in, the way they look. The orthodontist I ended up picking told me he loves my big teeth because you can see the changes more drastically and the only altering he talked about was on the bottom of my fronts because they are worn funny from being crooked. That and my orthodontist reminds me of my dentist, who is extremely awesome.

Welcome Mareesey
Congrats on starting down the road to great teeth. Hope you got the floss out!

Welcome Mareesey!

Hooray for getting started! Floss getting stuck is so, so annoying. I've tried using the pokey end and going between the teeth at the gumline, rather than in from the edge, if that makes sense.

@Bracer- I got what I do believe was all of that but then later in the day I noticed another spot where there was "ghost" floss. I for whatever reason thought I would try to use up the CVS floss I had before using my other stuff. . . Not a good plan.
@threescompany- Makes sense to me. It's only on certain teeth I can't get ANYTHING in there and some of the stuff the orthodontist gave me feels like I'm trying to shove a baseball through my teeth with how tight it's become.
Thank you both for the welcomes. I'd also like to add that I miss eating raw potatoes. Not that I do it just because but whenever were making mashed potatoes I'd eat a few pieces of raw ones. I LOVE raw potatoes, my brother and I were the bane of my mom's potato peeling days.

Congrats and Welcome!

I've always had problems with regular floss getting stuck and breaking off between my teeth. Since getting braces, I've been using Crest Glide Threader Floss, and it's worked WONDERS! It comes in a box of 30 individually-wrapped glosses that have one stiff end that you use to thread under your brackets. It never, ever gets stuck, and is easy to maneuver.

Cathy

Between school and work I haven't gotten on in awhile. I do have photos to share though, they are pretty horrible I took them with my iPhone.

This is from my ortho evaluation. . . Though I suppose that's obvious.

This is a day or so after I got the braces on.

This is 8 weeks and the second time they've changed the bands and I got a new archwire. I also had to start wearing rubber bands to start fixing my overbite.

This is 18 weeks. They gave me a clear powerchain to fix the gap in my front teeth, you can't see it or well the gap but the gap was getting pretty large while the bottom part of my front teeth were still caught on each other at the edge.

This is today 2 weeks after the last photo. I went in today because I stained the clear powerchain and they replaced it with a white wire to finish filling the gap at the top. I'm excited the gap closing has pulled my tooth straighter and my ortho shaved off most of the bumps on my front teeth that hadn't worn down from natural use.

I can barely take photos of the front let alone the sides of my teeth but it's more than my front ones being crooked my bottom teeth are fairly straight they just need some tweaking.

The progress looks good. The pink and plum alternating ligs are a nice touch. I want to do red and green for Christmas Big teeth are nice, which I say while having them The amount of movement in them is really noticable with the overlapped front teeth. You should look forward to being able to have a nice big smile when things are done. I know I am. Ever since getting braces, I have not been self concious about smiling. With my creepy vampire teeth I used to be embarrased to smile. Now even with a metal mouth I love it

Thanks a ton. I can relate to smiling more. I have been since the day I got my braces. At first it was because my lip fit more comfortably that way when I would smile but I am so much more confident even with the braces. My dentist is also super excited about my teeth. He wants before and after shots to show other patients because he wants to stress to them that it's for them not him. He always told me how great my teeth were but like everyone all I can see is what's wrong with them not the fact that they are healthy and still relatively the right shape. And creepy vampire teeth? I'm jealous at least some of your teeth are pointy. Between my night grinding and chewing ice as long as I've had teeth I have herbivore teeth. I'm sure we will both have amazing smiles when were done.