Metal Mouth Message Board

Hi sean83, congrats on making it to the finishing line. In answer to your questions: 1. I think it's quite common for them to miss a bit of glue when removing the brackets, but I doubt if it will brush off over time. I'd suggest mentioning it at your retainer appointment and I'm sure they'll polish ...

I had a triangular configuration from the inside lower first premolar to the top outside of my canine and first premolar on both sides for two months. I wore them 24/7 other than to take them out when cleaning my teeth. The biggest challenge was not to let them shoot out of my mouth when they snappe...

drrick, I do have a bonded retainer from lateral to lateral that was placed the day I got the braces off, but I was worried that the canines (and premolars) might start to shift/tip in from the sides as I had a narrow almost V-shaped arch before I started. Perhaps I'm worrying prematurely as I don't...

I had my braces removed on Thursday 12 November (I'm overjoyed about this after 2years and 2 months), and my ortho explained that my upper lateral incisors are not as wide as they are supposed to be and hence he had to leave gaps (approximately 2.5-3mm each side) between my laterals and canines in o...

Mine came off today. Totally unexpectedly as I was under the impression that my Ortho was going to evaluate as to when they could come off at today's appointment, but told the asst to take 'em off. What a great surprise, I'm still slightly stunned by the whole thing. I went out and had 1kg of ribs f...

I promise it does get better. Unfortunately I can't tell you how long it will take to get better, but you'll suddenly just realize that you don't have so many sore places in your mouth to contend with, and that somehow you're managing to chew somehow (even with a screwed up bite and tons of hardware...

No worries. the one thing I failed to mention is that the thicker wires (later in treatment) don't need these for centralizing as they're much stiffer and less likely to migrate around your arch, the only drawback is that the heavier wires are thicker and thus more noticeable themselves. Good luck w...

They're there to keep the arch wire centralized, in other words, to stop the wire sliding in the brackets from one side (of your mouth) to the other.
Unfortunately the best place for them to accomplish this is for them to be crimped on to the arch wire somewhere close to the middle (front).

You have to make sure that your decision that the service was not "good enough" is measurable and not purely emotionally derived as most orthos have a contract with their patients and if you back out of this without provable reason, you'll be in breach of said contract. If you don't have a...

Wow, I had a look at your pics of your teeth and they look absolutely awesome! I'm sure you're gonna enjoy the "brace free" party (please have a couple of caramels and gummies for me). Enjoy!

Today I had an adjustment (and got a few really unpleasant elastics configs) and when the tech was finished explaining where the elastics should be attached etc, she told me to make an appointment for four weeks time so they could "evaluate weather things are all in the right place" and if...

Congratulations Mary!!

I'm so so jealous, I've had mine more than two years and still can't see the end of this yet.
I really wish you all the best with your naked tooths, enjoy your freedom.

I've had mine for two years and three days now (of a two year estimate), and have at least three or more months to go. The lesson I've learned is that an estimate is just that (it's not a certainty) and you should not count on being finished when your estimated time comes up, you could be finished m...

Welcome to the board Sarahintx. Those things on your lower teeth are molar build-ups, they are a real pain to get used to, but you will adapt and learn to chew with them. I had my molar build-ups for about 2 weeks short of a year, and had got to the point that I could eat normally with them after ab...

Well, the length of time you have the molar build-ups differs from person to person, I can only tell you that I had mine for 11.5 months (got them 1Sep08 and they were taken off 13Aug09), but you do get used to them after a while and they don't bother you anymore. In my experience the gaps are most ...