Braces

spockforprez

Anyone have braces or want to relive their teenage braces angst?

I had an adjustment today and got a much larger wire AND new elastics, the teeny little thick kind, and I'm having to wear them in triangles so I can't open my fucking mouth and my molars are throbbing and everything aches and I WANT TO KILL SOMEONE!!!!

Okay, I feel better. Please commiserate with me! 

WinstonsGirl

Been there.  Just wait till you open your mouth a little too far and the elastic snaps.  If you're lucky it will fly out of your mouth.  If not, you get the painful snap in your mouth.  And yet I still think about getting Invisalign cos my teeth are crooked again.  

lc07

I remember how much they sucked. It was so painful. I didn't wear my retainers as a teenager and now my teeth have moved again. The only positive is that you'll have straight teeth at the end of this! I wish I could get braces again but I can't handle the price tag.

emmaaa

Oh I hated my braces! At least you're of age now and can have a margarita to help the pain?

labro

Ugh my orthodontist was really old (he'd been in the industry so long that he had put braces on my mom about 20 years earlier) and he was cranky and mean! I hated my appointments with him. All the soreness and discomfort now though will be worth it! You should go enjoy a milkshake since that doesn't require any chewing.

kylexo

I was a weird case where I only had braces for cosmetic reasons (think Amy Schumer's teeth where her front 2 teeth are really long and the next teeth are short, kinda buck teeth?) so I only had braces on my top 6 teeth the front and canine teeth to anchor and pull down the other ones. I HAAAAATED having braces and because it wasn't my whole mouth it didn't really look right, my mouth just looked messy. Even now, 15 years later I question whether I should have just had a unique smile rather than fixing it.

Also when I had braces, my sister, dad and I all had them at the same time, which was pretty funny.

scrunchythief

I had them twice:(  I wore my retainer religiously, but my tongue did something weird and my teeth moved.  Luckily my parents paid in advance, so it didn't cost anything more.  But I graduated both high school and college wearing braces.  After the second time they put in permanent retainers, so I shouldn't have them a third time. *fingers crossed*

OliveOilsMom

I was told I have an abnormally large tongue and that was one of the reasons my top front teeth had a gap.  So in order to "teach" my tongue where to lay in my mouth, I had to have a tongue guard.  It looked like a torture device!  I had to wear it for the first year of my braces.  I think that part was the worse. 

The adjustment sucks, I feel you pain.

princessleia22

I can't really relate... I should have had braces, but didn't. When I was a kid, my teeth started crowding and my parents couldn't afford braces, so they pulled out 2 permanent teeth instead. Overall it worked fine, but I have an underbite and my upper teeth don't really align with my lower teeth.  And my lower teeth are slightly overcrowded still.  A few years ago my dentist referred me to an orthodontist to look into it.  He said it was too severe for Invisalign and he wanted to do 2-3 years of bracing to spread my teeth back out and reinsert the teeth they pulled when I was a kid... for a grand total of about $10k.  I figured that I've lived this long with my mouth and have no physical issues with it, so I didn't think all that was necessary.

charlieray-2

Oh my god, I'm sorry! Braces are the worst. I never had to experience the whole banding the mouth closed thing, thank fuck...it sounds terrible (especially since I like to talk).

I was only supposed to have mine for "six months, a year at most!" LIES!!
Four years of torture..the only good thing was that I got them early so they were off before I got to high school.

My mouth was too small for all of my teeth so I had the "butterfly," which is a device that attaches to the roof of your mouth and every night you turn the "key" (a stiff piece of wire that didn't actually turn, it went front to back) a few times and it widens your mouth little by little (by freaking breaking it btw)...I had a gap between my front teeth that I could slurp spaghetti through by the end of it...the worst part though was when the key would get stuck (when it was back toward my throat of course) and my dad would have to pull it out with pliers.


Here, this...

...torture device.

spockforprez

I feel so sorry for you guys who had to have extra appliances... @OliveOilsMomI have a slight tongue thrust issue so for awhile we thought I might have to have a tongue guard too. Thank god I didn't because my understanding is it's the worst! You poor thing!

My teeth are feeling a bit better this afternoon. I got Panera for lunch, my go-to braces food haha. Mac & cheese and broccoli soup, mmmm. 

spockforprez

When we first started I was a candidate for jaw surgery... the other 2 orthos I got quotes from wouldn't even do it without surgery. I had an edge to edge bite, where my teeth met at front instead of overlapping slightly like they are supposed to. It was caused mostly because my upper jaw is a bit too small. My ortho was willing to try it without surgery, although it was always a possibility and I had to sign the disclaimer and all that. If I had had surgery, my mouth literally would have been banded shut! LOL! I can talk decently but yawning, eating, etc. is off the table.