Metal Mouth Message Board

Hello there! I know that the Inman Aligner brace is a relativley new treatment here in the UK and that it might be helpful to share my experience of it with you all so that anybody who is considering it or is just curious has just that little bit more information to hand.

So, I naturally have straight teeth. When I was quite a young child in Primary school a boy pushed me over at some force and speed face first in to the concrete playground floor. Unfortunatley I've always been physically maturer than most my age and I got my teeth quickly and already had my adult set. My mouth bled profusely but I was not sent home, by the time home time had rolled around and I was taken to see the dentist they said it was too late to correct them instantly and that I would need a brace. I was adamant that I didn't want one and my parents respected my wishes.

I did however stop smiling with my mouth open - a tight lipped, closed mouth smile became the norm, and I covered my face with my hands whenever I laughed. I've always been extra cautious to cover my mouth from the angles etc which show it at it's worst.

My teeth aren't really a severe case but they bother me so much, and I've never gotten used to the feeling of my teeth being unaligned in my mouth. My front top two are indented in the middle so that they jut out at the sides and my bottom few are overall just crooked, with the very front bottom two crossing over each other (this makes them very difficult to clean, and my dentist has to do it for me).

At 18 I started to use home whitening kits (I had naturally yellow teeth) and began to consider the possibility of braces, and at 19 I went to my dentist to see what could be done. He said that I could probably get braces on the NHS if I wanted them, and I made up my mind to get them.

The Consultation

When I first properly talked to my dentist about the braces I was devastated to hear that he had since revised his opinion and realized that I did not qualify for braces on the NHS. He did however have some Inman Aligners himself - he explained about them, and how they affected only the front teeth. He insisted that they'd work particularly well for the issues I had with my mouth and took the impressions for the IAs. I left the surgery feeling upset and tearful, wandering how a 19 year old student was supposed to pay £800 for each set of braces.

Thankfully I have a wonderful family who have helped me to afford them. It took about 2 weeks for the IA to be made and for my dentist to get back to me about them.

The Fitting

When I first arrived all the staff at the dentist made a big fuss over how it was 'the big day', and were all generally very pleasent and helpful. The dentist had had his off and the nurse working with him had just had hers off too, so they had plenty of first hand experience and knew what they were talking about.

I was first shown two molds of my teeth - the ones of how they are now (for the first time ever my mum awknowledged that my teeth *are* crooked, after insisting for so long that they were fine and didn't need anything doing) and the ones of how they would probably look after. The after was so straight and perfect that I may have stood staring at them for longer than was strictly necessary.

The dentist then filed my teeth down by the tiniest amount ever. This was neither painful nor uncomfortable, although it felt like he took off more than he actually did. The only thing that bothered me was trying to keep my tongue out of the way. Then he put composite fillings on my teeth which was probably the most uncomfortable part purely because of the chemical taste in my mouth. He made these very discreet so that you can't even tell that they're there unless you're told about it first hand. He made me wash my mouth out with some special moush wash which he gave me a free bottle of to take away with me.

Then he showed me the aligners. They're a bit different to the standard ones because they have clear plastic moulds on the back teeth at the top, which I believe is meant to make more room in my mouth and correct a cross bite. He showed me how to put them on before letting me have a go in front of a mirror, and was then promptly jealous when I got them on and off on the first attempt, something which he said even he hadn't managed to do

Over all the fitting was not painful at any point, although I did take some pain killers before hand. I was comprehensible in my speech instantly (everyone could still understand what I was saying) but I had a heavy lisp.

The first night

The IAs are quite tight on the right hand side of my mouth where the teeth need to move the most (the dentist said this is because of the way that I impacted the ground). The gums on the right hand side of my mouth bled a bit for the first night, and I had to use some of the free dental wax that they gave me to stop the wires from scratching the insides of my cheeks. I salivated much much more than usual. The only time that my teeth hurt on the first night was removing and then putting the aligners back in again, which I had to take pain killers for (and I have a high pain threshold and despise pain killers). I went to sleep in the aligners without difficulty but dribbled a lot in my sleep.

What my teeth looked like before the treatment

Here's the picture that someone uploaded of me on Facebook that really gave me the push I needed to sort out my teeth (Please ignore the horrific angle and facial expression, I'm not that ugly I swear!):



And here's what my teeth looked like close up

Upper arch, you can really see the indentation of the front teeth here:



Lower arch, you can see where the teeth are crossed over:



From the front, they don't look that bad from straight on:



From the side, you can see my 'rabbit' teeth:



I'll post my day 1 update soon! Keep smiling people, we'll have beautiful teeth in no time.

Day 1



Here's what my Aligners looked like after I'd just got them on. Neat huh? Please excuse all of the spit.

Anyway, let's get on with it. Day 1 started off with an unceremonious awakening at 6 in the morning (I wasn't aware that there were 2 6's in a day, but there you go!). My subconcious self had evidently decided that she wasn't keen on sleeping with this alien contraption in her mouth and used my tongue (Seriously, I wish I could remember how I did it!) to ping off the top brace. I woke up mid ping which, sufficing to say, wasn't the most happy fun moment of my life ever.

I took some co-codamol (My hero! ) and mooched about the house a bit, taking the aligners off for half an hour to have some breakfast and clean everything, before falling asleep again. My dentist said not to use anything more abrasive than a tooth brush to clean the aligners, so I ran it under the tap and scrubbed at it with my brush a bit. I've a feeling I may be slightly addicted to the mouth wash that he gave me

The right hand side of my mouth didn't feel as tight as it did on the first night and it stopped bleeding where the expander was. I had to use some mint flavoured dental wax to put over the top left hand wire/spring, because it was shredding up my inner cheek pretty badly. On the plus side I realized that if I left some time inbetween taking the aligners off and eating I could avoid the wincing fit of pain induced rage which occured on the first night (although my front teeth were most definitley out of action, chewing spaghetti bolognaise on your back teeth is unnatural darn it!).

The composite blobs seemed to hold everything in place really well, and my teeth already began to feel loose. It was slightly worrying when they began to make cracking noises, but nothing seems to be broken, I can only assume my teeth wanted to be more vocal than my actual voice can be at the moment. My lisp hadn't improved any (unsurprisingly, since I don't talk in my sleep and thus hadn't had any practice, although evidently I do inflict torture upon my snoozing self).

Here, have some pictures of my metal and plastic grinmace (Yes, that is now a word, for I have realized that I cannot do the closed mouth smile with this stuff in my mouth but I fail at the never used open mouthed smile):







Is it crazy to feel like my bottom teeth moved just the tiniest of amounts on the first day? (Take a look here for the comparison between before and day 1: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/84 ... dday1.jpg/)

When I poke 'em I can feel more of my front right tooth than usual. That might just be my imagination. Or the pain killers of course

Day 2

So, my day began with my top aligner once again popping out of my mouth, this time of it's own accord. Thankfully though I'm not becoming predictable as it was at 4am and the Inman Aligner didn't seem to want to go back on this time. I was worried that my composite blobs might be wearing down but it seems that they're all still as they were when the dentist put them there. I can only put the difficulty down to a minute change in tooth position.

I hit the pain killers pretty hard still as my lower gum on my right hand side began to bleed and I developed several sores on the inside of my cheeks where the skin has been rubbed and torn away. It's began to get easier to take the aligner out and put it in again in that it isn't as sore as it was at first.

My front left tooth on the top arch seems to be moving backwards and to be looser than it's twin on the right, and I think they may be moving seperatley. It's still too early for obvious changes but I do think that my bottom front teeth have begun to uncross. Such a shame to seperate a pair that have been so close for so long

There seems to be tooth imprints in the back plastic part of the spring of my top aligner. I don't know if this is normal or not, I've not been biting it or anything.

I forgot to mention previously that I've been wearing the aligner for 19-20 hours a day. It is recommended to leave them off for at least 4 hours a day so that the blood can continue to get to them properly. I take them out to eat (which takes me a while, I've always been a slow eater) and for two hours in the evenings.

The pictures for day 2:



Upper arch... is it just me or are they not as symmetrical now?



Lower arch. I can't wait for my bottom four to straighten themselves out, but I'm a little worried that they won't meet up with my top four properly once they're done!



All of the teeth that I can manage to show.



I've been practicing my smile for when the braces come off - it's still a long way to go, but it makes me feel better (and man do I need to work on it I just look like I'm scowling!)

Day 3

So, guess what happened today? That's right, my top aligner popped out and woke me up - again. It took several attempts to get it back in and I think my teeth may be possesed. Either that or I seriously need more/some bigger composite blobs. Yeah, probably the latter one. Confusingly though it doesn't seem to happen during the day - it stays on fine all of the time except in the mornings.

Today has been a strange mixture of almost forgetting that I have them in and shouting obscenities at them whist trying to banish them to the crooked pits of orthodontic hell. I had to leave them out for quite a while this morning because I had a morning of needing to look my best for very serious important buisness And they punished me for my abandonment of them by creating an actual hole in my bottom gum on the right.

I've realized that I can no longer push the right side of the bottom aligner all the way down because it digs in too much and it's far, far too tight (it doesn't even fit if I'm to be honest! ) so I'm now leaving the right hand side to sit slightly higher up than it should. I can still feel pressure on my teeth, so I'm hoping that it's still working. I'm going to contact my dentist on Monday to see if it's alright to leave it like that, because there's no way on this Earth that that expander is going over my gums without taking out substancial amounts of mouth tissue with it.

I've been practicing my smile more today to try and take my mind off the fact that I'm needing more and more pain killers instead of less. I swear my speech is actually getting worse too! (nobody could understand a word I said today whilst I had the aligners in ).

I know taking pictures every day is a tad obsessive (I'm watching you through your window ) but searching for tiny changes makes me feel better because it reminds me of the smile I'll have by the end of all of this. And when these things come off, trust me, I'll be beaming!







My smile looks wonkier today... I'm hoping it's a case of it looking worse before it gets any better!

Day 4

So, my saliva seems to have turned in to glue. Intriguing.

Seriously though, it has the consistancy of weak porridge. Niiiicceee. My mouth doesn't smell particularly attractive either - it smells like fish, and I don't even eat fish. Cleaning the braces doesn't seem to make a blind bit of difference in this. Brushing my teeth feels a bit tender and it's difficult to give the back of the bottom teeth a thorough clean

I've started to develop a routine - by which I mean my top aligner falls off at 4am every morning. I've been a zombie the last few days... student.need.sleep *rawr*. After a few failed attempts at putting it back in again I just left it out and went back to sleep. Terrible, I know, but it was like trying to slam a revolving door.

I've found that I need to make sure the little looped hooks next to where the plastic bars at the front end need to really be digging in to my gums for the top set to stay on. I also need to leave my mouth awkwardly open for a few seconds without swallowing or moving after putting it in so that it doesn't ping off again. The hole in my gum still exists but I've been too woozy from the pain killers to notice it much. The scratches inside my cheeks have healed over and turned in to scars, which is nice because the tougher skin isn't getting scratched now. The top aligner also pinged out during the day today, only once though as I bent over to pick something up.

Oh, and the little metal hoops can also be pushed down to quickly and (relativley) painlessly remove either set of aligners. Yay!

Progress wise people I know have told me that they can see movement already. It does seem that my bottom set of teeth are steadily uncrossing, and the top set looks.. well, different, not necessarily better just yet. I keep looking at pictures of straight smiles for inspiration, and thinking how much I'll smile when I don't need the aligners any more.

I naturally smiled with my mouth open for the first time today. It felt amazing! I looked in the mirror and just laughed and laughed. Ok, so maybe I'm going insane, but it felt nice to be able to smile and laugh without being ashamed of myself. I think this was possible because I *know* now that my teeth are going to be fine. I'm fixing my teeth for every second that I wear the aligners. And that feels great

Chewing is getting easier - not because it's less painful, but because I've decided to stop caring. I only chew on the back teeth now. When I swallow I have to suck my aligners to my teeth to make sure that they don't ping off.

My speech is still no better - it sounds muffled now. I try to touch the roof of my mouth with my tongue by putting the tip of my tongue inbetween the back of the spring and the back bar of the top aligner. I can speak fine with just the bottom aligner in.

Worryingly, if I push my top teeth, they move. I try not to do this as I'm concerned it'll cause some kind of root damage.

I'll be able to report what kissing in the aligners is like soon, as I'll be seeing my boyfriend tomorrow and he'll be staying for a while. That might mean that I vanish off this place for a bit then reappear with a lot of updates for you all a few days later.

Here, have today's pictures.

And now, a break from our scheduled program...

A close up of my front two bottom teeth - before the aligners (on the left) and after four days (on the right):

Day 5

So, my top aligner came out at 4 as usual - and then would. Not. Go. Back. In. At all. Whatsoever.

I kept my bottom aligner in and met up with my boyfriend. Kissing in just the bottom set is absolutely fine, they also don't seem to affect my speech much. I made an appointment with my dentist to see what's going on with the top aligner. Not much to report except that it's getting less painful to put them in and take them back out again. I was still chewing on just my back teeth.

Day 6

Very much the same as day 5 but without being woken up at 4. Ah, bliss! I could get used to this while being able to talk properly thing!

Day 7

A week! Huzzah! Although my family doesn't seem to think that it's been that long. Perhaps my maths skills are a bit off kilter.

I saw my dentist today and raised 3 concerns:

1. There's teeth indentations in the plastic bar at the back.

His response: That's how they're designed for maximum pressure on your teeth.

2. My bottom aligner has cut a hole through my jaw, so I have to rest it a bit higher up than it should be.

His response: It shouldn't be causing you pain, the whole point of these are that they're painless. It's fine how you have it now though, the pressure is still on your teeth and it's not too far off the initial position.

3. My top aligner won't stay in.

His response: Your composites are still in place. Your teeth have begun to move and you need to apply more pressure on the back of your aligner whilst putting it in now than you did before.

I love my dentist, he's awesome. Anyway, I now have my top aligner back in place. I have to say, both aligners are much easier to talk in now and I keep forgetting that they're in there! I'm so looking forward to having straight, beautiful teeth. It's difficult to kiss in both aligners, you're limited to pretty much just a peck on the lips, so set aside your snogging time for when you have the aligners out!

I look like I have a monkey mouth from the side because my lips are too small to fit around the aligners properly.

I'll post some update pictures soon!

Day 8

Not much to report except that both my aligners stayed in well. My boyfriend said that I could keep them in forever if I wanted and he wouldn't think any less of me, because I was worrying a bit about how my mouth looks when I have them in. From a distance you can't really tell that they're there but they do push my top lip out a fair bit.

I forgot to put them in before I fell asleep so I'm a little but concerned that my overall treatment time will be affected.

Day 9

A small round ball formed on the inside of my left cheek at the bottom. It wasn't painful to touch and had vanished by the end of the day. The wires began to cut my cheeks again so I had to put the dental wax back on. I can't feel as much pressure on my teeth as when the aligners first went in. For the first time since I got them they didn't ping out at 4 in the morning, although the back spring at the top keeps slipping a little bit. I can easily push it back in to place with my tongue.

Day 10

The pressure on my teeth returned with a vengance. I had a migraine but I'm not sure if the two things were related or not. I've found that my top lip remains slightly pushed out when I take the aligners out now, and I'm wondering if it will be a lasting change. My top two front teeth seem to be shorter and further apart now, but not by much. It's becoming more difficult to take the top aligner out because of the added pressure with which I put it in now. I'm frustrated at how long this treatment might take but it's still much less of a sentence than fixed brace times.

Day 11 photograph interlude













^ That last one is a picture of my bite.

2 weeks update!

Hey guys! Sorry for neglecting the updates just lately.

It's been 2 weeks today! I went for my check up and the dentist filed some more off my teeth, the gaps had closed up quite a lot inbetween them all. He seems to think that my top two teeth are moving faster than the bottom set are. He wants to see me every 2 weeks.

The filing hurt a little bit today, probably because my teeth are already quite tender, and my gums bled a bit. That lump came back the other day then went away again just as quickly. It was very odd!

My top aligner hasn't pinged out since he showed me how to put it in properly, but the back spring does seem to slide down a lot. It's no big deal, I can push it back up with my tongue, and I'm enjoying not waking up at 4am every morning.

Comparison pictures! The top is day 1, the bottom is today:

Hey Nikki, that is brilliant progress. Congratulations!

Thank you for posting about your experience with the Inman Aligners. No-one else has done any detailed posting about them on this site and I would have appreciated this sort of detail before I made my choice of brace.

I have a fixed sectional brace on my top arch. When I asked my orthodontist about an Inman Aligner she said they were very bulky and would seriously affect my speech. She also said it would not do a very good job in my case. Not sure if she was right in this as the Inmans are obviously doing a great job for you and very quickly too.

Your aligners are quite discreet so your teeth look pretty natural in your front photos. But are they very bulky in your mouth? How are you managing with speaking and eating?

Regards,

Jem