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I no longer have my E-Arch for the palatal expander but have elastics. Widening my uppers are taking longer than hoped . So we (ortho team and myself) were hoping that with a couple months of elastics on the inside of my top molars stretching out to the outer part of my bottom molars would do the trick.
They gave me Freds (about 1/4 in.) and after 1 month they realized, oops, they were supposed to give me Debbies (much smaller, think 1/2 the size of a pencil eraser). Yikes! I can feel the pain now. I'm a bit frustrated as we didn't see movement with the Freds.
I have elastics for expansion as well, mine are 1/4 in x 6 oz.
I have only had them about 4 weeks but I already see good progress. I will know more next week at my next appointment.
Hope the new elastics work quickly! The first week in elastics I was dying, now I totally forget I have them on and frequently I find myself eating dinner and then remembering that I needed to take them out. LOL atleast they stay put and I am not eating them!
Hey I'm in elastics too helping with retracting my top teeth, and had them for 3 and half years now, started with just 2 on each side then 3, from upper cannine,second pre-molar and first molar back down to lower 2nd premolar,first molar and second molar. Was very weird for a week or two till I got used to them and I swallowed quite a few--now only rarely! I found once I got the headgear fitted the elastics were less of a problem cos the thick facebow wires go between my upper back teeth and my cheeks so there's more space for the elastics and the little hooks don't seem to make my mouth sore like they did before. If you cut food up into tiny squares that hardly need chewing it should make eating in elastics a bit easier-well that's what I found. Good luck, love Sharrsharrsheesheiya
. So we (ortho team and myself) were hoping that with a couple months of elastics on the inside of my top molars stretching out to the outer part of my bottom molars would do the trick. 
atleast they stay put and I am not eating them! 
