How Long Did It Take...

[mapleleafman888]

...for you to get used to your 'new mouth'? Mainly am curious to know what you experienced as far as treatment type goes and how has this affected your chewing, talking etc. I've realized over the last few months my talking has become so bad, I stumble all over words and spit lots regularly while talking. Anyone else experience these changes and did you have to 'relearn' how to pronounce certain words?

[Nozzelnut]

My mouth is still in transition and have small problems that only I notice with pronunciations. Lots of "S" issues... Guessing it's going to be a lot different after surgery next year.

Reading to yourself out loud will help; several folks mentioned this when they had RPE or other appliances installed.

[mapleleafman888]

Yeah S is crazy. I think I will try that out loud reading exercise. Thanks.

[Langers00]

I have to say i've not had any issues at all. No stumbling of words or anything. There is a woman at work who also has a brace but she appears to be struggling. It looks like her lips are trying hard to stretch over her braces which in turn makes it difficult to talk normally.

I dont have that problem - must have stretchy lips or something!

[Felina Grimm]

It didn't affect my talking until late November. I have a lisp now an I have trouble keeping my lips closed. The lisp is getting worse. I still have issues chewing.

[Azul]

I didnt have any speech problem at all, I feel quite comfortable since the begining, I feel so lucky!

[jaime]

I've had an RPE (horrible for talking), now a TPA wire and braces. I find that if I am intentional with my pronunciation that my lisp is not so noticeable. It's when I get tired or lazy that I slur S's and W's. I have to work a little harder to talk and sometimes I just forget to do that.

I found singing (alone in my car!) helped me to figure out how hard to work to pronounce things.

[PerthGirl26]

I've definitely had to re-learn how to pronounce certain words, mainly to avoid the braces rubbing against my lips resulting in mouth ulcers. It has been quite frustrating as I need to do a lot of presentations and attend meetings for work. I speak with a lisp now - super annoying!

[DoctoraBella]

Do you have a lot of sores? How soon did you get them? I'm only day 2 but no sores at all though I was very worried.

[mapleleafman888]

Do you have a lot of sores? How soon did you get them? I'm only day 2 but no sores at all though I was very worried.

Not anymore. It took about 2 weeks for me to have to use wax. But I am 16 months in now and I never get sores at all now.

It's mainly just the over shape of my mouth which has changed making talking super weird.

[millie23]

It took me about three weeks for my speech to sound normal again. For the first few adjustments, my tongue would get cut open by the string pulling back my impacted canine (away from my other teeth in order to be later moved into correct position), so as you can imagine, it hurt to eat. Thankfully that has stopped happening, but I still have the cuts and T-Bar impression on my tongue. Hopefully they will go away soon!!