Scared!

[Lyndsay36]

Hi everyone.

I have been thinking about getting lingual braces for a long time now, have seen an orthodontist who is willing to do the work and says it should take about 18-24 months but I am really scared about how much my speech will be affected?

I need both upper and lower jaw and 2 teeth extracted from the upper.

Can anyone give any advise?

Thank you

[ana7]

Hi Lyndsay...today is exactly one week with my upper linguals. My lowers are the front metal damon type (couldn't afford to get both lingual). My tongue was sore for the first 3 days, i must say i adjusted to it quite quickly. i expected my tongue to hurt longer than that. My teeth were hurting for the first 5 days. Now they are quite ok. Only very slight soreness.

But i must say my speech is still very much affected. I think it has gotten better but still a long way to go. I went out to meet a few friends today and i asked them to be honest on how they thought i sound. They told me i dont sound that bad. Only the "s" sound and they said i sound a bit "muffled" like im talking with something in my mouth. But it should only get better right? I really hope so, since i dont want to be sounding like this for the next 2 years. Im being positive about this. Whats important is people still understand what im trying to say. And my ortho did tell me that most of his patients took 2-3 weeks for their speech to get back to normal.

You shouldn't be discouraged by this. Everyone is different. There are people who did not have any speech problems at all and you might be one of them.

[Clare85]

Hi guys!
I lisped for about 2 weeks and then was totally fine. No one has even noticed I have braces, and the people who I saw in that first 2 weeks (largely work colleagues and family) said my speech was totally normal now! It was never that bad. I practiced saying:
she sells sea shells by the sea shore, and the shells that she sells are sea sells for sure.
Good luck! I have been posting a fair bit in one of the other threads, so feel free to check that out
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[AdamT123]

I'm a spammer and I've just been banned by the admin!