Metal Mouth Message Board

Just got braces off. I have a permanent retainer behind the upper front 4 and the lower front 6. I have a clear invisalign retainer I wear on the uppers and in a couple of weeks am picking up the traditional night retainer for the uppers and will only use the invisalign during the day. Anyone else h...

Okay - braces off today after 17 months. Pleased with the outcome. However, the tech had a difficult time getting one molar band off. 3 were attached over crowns and only one over just a molar surface. Anyway the one on the molar took a lot of trying. Well tonight as I ran my tongue over the back of...

Traditional Metal - 8 weeks apart

What exactly is the dark triangle that appears between some of the teeth at the gumline? Is it permanent?

My ortho calls them turbo stops (directly behind my two front teeth) and it prevents me from knocking off my lower braces because of my overbite and overjet. Once the teeth have moved enough - we can remove them (estimated 8 months in turbos). The first week or two - I was really crying about them -...

I have metal braces (and am middle-aged) and began with the silver ligs which blended with the metal. Only problem I saw was that if I lost a lig - I couldn't tell because it all blended in. Last time I got light blue so I could see if anything was missing but another good thing is that they just ar...

I too got a dark spot between my three front teeth as they shifted - couldn't figure out what the dark spots were. After a week or two they are gone - so I think when the tooth moved that the gum moved with it and then it took a while for the gum to fill in and move back where it belongs. Just a gue...

I got my first adjustment today and pushcoil springs today - 2 on the lower front and 1 on the upper front. Gee did it ever feel good for the few minutes without the wire when I could brush and floss freely -- I could've done that all day. However, the push coils (yes they are making all my teeth te...

I have bite turbos on the backs of my upper front teeth. The only place my teeth touch is where the bottoms touch those turbos. I am a teeth grinder at night and I will wake up and my teeth are clenched together so hard that the pressure on those turbos is incredible. When I finally wake up my upper...

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I didn't have any alignment dots -- is that a bad thing?

You guys have such great looking teeth - so white. My teeth were sort of a dingy color when I started and to me the metal braces make them look sort of gray - almost blends in so that the braces aren't so noticeable. I sure wish my teeth were as white as the pics/with braces that I see on this site

I have the bite turbos and have had them since Feb. 12. Took the first two weeks until I learned to talk again - I still sort of lisp out my "s" and "c" sounds. Eating was a challenge because as a previous poster said - none of my teeth surfaces touch. I had to learn to eat again...

You might also try proenamel (by Sensodyne) toothpaste. It is supposed to help strengthen & protect enamel from acidic foods and beverages.

I have turbo stops behind my two front teeth -- prevents me from being able to knock off the lower braces with my upper teeth. Hated them at first because it was difficult to eat anything that wasn't liquified because none of my teeth really touch anymore - but somehow over the past couple of weeks ...