Hi everyone!

Message

#1 Post by **AudreyII** » Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:40 pm

Hi!

New girl here - just got my upper iBraces yesterday! Here's my story,

Had braces in my teens, standard clear with a palate expander. Ahh, teeth were SO perfect, for a minute. Long story short, my ortho wasn't great, I wasn't very diligent, my open bite soon started regressing, retainers became more painful, and I stopped wearing them altogether.

Fast forward about 15 years, I've been pining for perfect teeth and finally bit the bullet, er, mold.

Chose upper linguals for a couple reasons:
- First, I didn't want the paranoia I used to have with food stuck in my braces.
- Second, I still have the *scrape marks* on the front of my teeth, from when the first set was taken off. Grr.
- Third, my ortho recommended, and said if I didn't, she would put little spikes on the lingual side, to control my "tongue thrust". Bah!

The process yesterday was interesting; apparently iBraces has new owners, and I had a crowd of about half dozen sales reps observing my whole procedure! I had been a bit nervous before arriving, but it was such comedy to suddenly have these guys in suits gawking at my splayed mouth. One guy whispered the play-by-play, while the others peered in my face, "Ooooh!"!

There was also some awkward filler like, "Oh, you've got mouth jewelry now! Bling Bling!" WTF??? Name dropping too: did you know Meryl Streep secretly wore iBraces through two movies? Ooooh!

It was all relatively comfortable (banter aside

) except for the damn glue, which got between my teeth and had to be somewhat forcefully flossed out, ouch! I could *immediately* feel the wire, and that spacey sort of pressure.

Speech is 95% except... as I told my co-workers today, "I have trouble with that letter between R and T". S's are making me a bit self conscious, but I expected it.

So far, tooth pain only when chewing, tongue a bit sensitive but bearable, and mild constant pressure. Not bad overall... knock on wood! Got lots of goodies, and have been trying a few different waxes... will detail in another post.

My ortho doesn't do bottom linguals, so I'll be getting In-Ovation clear brackets on end of February. That's it for now, glad to have found this forum! : )

PS - Here's a few pics:

http://picasaweb.google.com/flicksappeal/OrthoPics

#2 Post by **lionfish** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 12:09 am

Hi audrey & welcome.

Glad to hear it's all going well so far, can identify with what you're saying about the letter "S"!

Your pics look good, btw.

#3 Post by **AudreyII** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 12:04 pm

Hey thanks lionfish for the welcome!

So far my first week+ into these things have been a learning adventure.

I didnâ€™t expect results right away, but I didnâ€™t expect my bite to change for the worse. Now, none of my teeth touch, save the back two pairs. And my overbite is further out than before. Oddly, my teeth actually look a little better, I just can't pinpoint what's changed. Maybe my smile has widened a bit? Hard to tell.

Also, I think the extra overbite is making my lisp worse, because you need tongue/teeth â€œfrictionâ€

#4 Post by **FITeach** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 12:58 pm

Your teeth are already beautiful.
Good luck though.

#5 Post by **lionfish** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 1:06 pm

Hi Audrey,

It's not unusual for things to get worse before they get better. I also went through a period where very few teeth made contact.

Whatever works for you flossing wise will be fine. I liked the Oral B Superfloss, but that was me.

Yes, the early wires "respond" to changes in temperature. I noticed this particularly when I had my first chilled white wine!

#6 Post by **annie82** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 4:05 am

hey audrey congrats on taking the plunge! I know what it's like in the beginning, but it will get better soon. And yeah, it's gonna look worse before it gets better, you might see gaps opening up and closing again, that's just the way it works.

#7 Post by **Jay Tea** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 7:27 pm

Hey congrats on getting your linguals on

do you think there is a big difference between normal braces and linguals with your speech?

#8 Post by **AudreyII** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 11:22 am

Thanks FiTech!

My teeth are pretty straight, that's the main reason I procrastinated re-bracing for so long. My dentist finally convinced me there would be major problems if I didn't get my bite fixed. I almost wish they looked worse - most people are supportive, but a few friends have INSISTED I didn't need them, to the point of argument! LOL

#9 Post by **AudreyII** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 11:27 am

Hey Lionfish,

Good to know, the wire thing freaked me out the first time it happened.

Superfloss looks way too scary for me, but I plan on trying the Sturdy Floss sample from my Dentakit order.

#10 Post by **AudreyII** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 11:35 am

I especially liked your wide angle shot

LOL! Thanks!

Flossing - you should get to grips with threaders or self-threading floss. Though you can get between the teeth, it sounds like you're not flossing along the gumline? And that is every bit as important.

I'm flossing along the gumline on the front of my teeth, but can only floss between the teeth on the back side. Does that make sense? I guess you're right, I'm still missing the back gumline.

To complicate flossing MORE, I just got a Powerchain, which I plan on whining at length about in my next post!

#11 Post by **AudreyII** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 11:41 am

Jay Tea wrote:Hey congrats on getting your linguals on do you think there is a big difference between normal braces and linguals with your speech?

Hmm... it's hard to say, I had a palate expander the first time around which wasn't great for my speech either.

I'll say the linguals haven't been nearly as hard on my speech as I worried they'd be.