Metal Mouth Message Board

To follow up on what both Meryaten and Neptune said ... I was one of the folks with sticky Damon doors. I was a little plaque factory while I was in braces - my regular dentist's assistant commented on this when I went for my cleanings. I ended up going for cleanings every 4 months while I was in br...

I was one of the people who had trouble with the Damon doors. I had a few that got stuck (mainly the ones in the very front) but they didn't stick all the time and not all of them stuck. I didn't have any trouble with my roots - it was just a painful nuisance. Sorry I can't provide more information ...

I got both of mine on at the same time, but I had the upper removed 6 months before the lower one.

The printed brochure that came with my Essix retainer said to use soap and a tooth brush. When I asked about it, I was told that I could use a gel toothpaste (not a paste kind) instead of the soap because the gels were less abrasive than the paste types. For a while, I used Dr. Bronner's liquid soap...

When my bracket was changed, I got a larger wire - that was the reason that the bracket was changed. And, I've got to believe that it didn't set my treatment back! I will add that I believe that estimating treatment time is an art, not a science. It seems like there are too many variables involved t...

I guess I was in the "bad bracket" club once. When I was in getting my wire changed to a thicker wire, the ortho tech COULD NOT get that darn wire into the bracket, so she called on of the other techs over to try. Well, she couldn't get the wire in either. So they called the ortho over and...

I had braces and got two implants after the braces were taken off. I was told by the implant specialist that they can put the little screw into your jaw before the braces are taken off, but the ortho recommended that I wait until the braces were off and everything settled down. I don't remember how ...

Yep, I'm one of the folks with implants. I was missing two lower teeth - another case of weird genetics aka hypodontia. I had baby teeth in those two spots but no permanent teeth behind them. One baby tooth was pulled when I was 12 and over the course of 40 years, my teeth shifted around and into th...

Well, I don't have a horror story about Essix retainers. I've been wearing my upper Essix retainer for 18 months now, and I've been just fine with it. I wore it 24/7 for 2 weeks (as my ortho instructed) and I've been wearing it nightly since then. I've said this before - I actually prefer my upper E...

I have a Sonicare Elite. It was recommended by my dentist, after I got my first post-braces cleaning (it wasn't very auspicious - I turned out to be a plaque machine). And, the dentist recommended that my non-brace-wearing husband use it also because he was wearing down the enamel on his teeth with ...

I just have to disagree with something that TheNewEmperor said and I'm wondering if TNE has implants or not. I just got two implants and there was very, very little physical pain. It went even more smoothly than I could have expected. I'm 55 (!) and I also have decades ahead of me. So, I'll disagree...

I got my uppers and lowers on the same day, but my uppers were removed 6 months before the lowers were removed!

Sorry to hear about your status, BoSox2008, but thanks for the reminder. I think a lot of people hesitate to ask their ortho about something that doesn't feel right, but it doesn't hurt to ask - and, in the long run, it may help! If something doesn't feel right, often it's because it isn't right.

I was pleasantly surprised recently when my insurance covered part of the cost of my implants. Of course, it wasn't much compared to the total cost, but I got $400 to cover the cost of one replacement tooth. I got two implants, one to replace a baby tooth that was pulled when I was 12 and one to rep...

I was 24/7 for only the first two weeks, then 12 hours a day. I probably wear mine 10 hours a day rather than 12. But, my uppers have been off for over a year now and my lowers have been off for about 6 months, I've worn my retainers faithfully every night (except for the night I had food poisoning ...