Metal Mouth Message Board

I need to complain!! I've had braces now for almost a year and I am sick and tired of them. Don't get me wrong, everything is progressing nicely but I am just SO OVER it. I know I'll be thrilled with my smile when this is done, and I know that I'm doing something for my self-esteem and any discomfort or inconvenience I feel now will be forgotten about when it's all said and done and blah blah blah. Believe me, I've recited that mantra for months. So I thought I would see how many others were as tired of the constant flossing and brushing and picking food out of your teeth and waxing and eating restrictions and all the other "fun" stuff that braces entails. I'm probably just having a bad day and tomorrow I'll be back to my optimistic and sunny self. But today, I'm just over the whole thing.

Misery loves company, so if you're in the mood to complain.... welcome home!

Think of it this way. You could be carrying 100 pounds on your back, dressed head to toe, in the desert, 40°C+, being shot at.

Makes one not want to complain anymore, eh?

I wan to gt my braces off as soon as possible. I am nickel sensitive, and i had my molars band removed couple days ago. But they will replaced by molar tubes next week. I just think i am poisened by nickel. I juts cant these thing any more.

Is switching to Invisalgn and option for you? I was soo miserable in brackets. For 6 months, I never got used to it. I was sick of the wax and my lips could never wrap themselves around the high profile brackets. Really by 3 pm every day I was so depressed. Fortunately, by then my teeth had moved enough that IL was an option. IL is a breeze compared to brackets. Miserable is no way to go through life.

There are a few more of us out there...

viewtopic.php?t=27236

I want mine off, but I have to bite the bullet and deal with it for the next year and a half to two years!!

I WANT A HOLLYWOOD SMILE!!


Pain is pleasure....I guess!

But I am all for complaing about them though!

Amen, Danielle! If my ortho's treatment timeline is correct, I should be done in 7 months. I started in February 2006 but only been in bottom braces since April 07 and upper braces since September 2007. I was given an 18 month sentence, which should wrap up this journey at the beginning of 2009. All things considered, I would have opted for the extractions instead of the pendulum (which took 2 years and not the 6 months they anticipated). Other than that, I have no regrets - but I've had enough already.

I was not given the option of Invisalgn and I'm not sure I would have taken it anyway. I haven't had any issues with the brackets and have barely used wax and never tried salt rinses. In other words, Chris, I have no tangible basis for my complaints!

Thanks for chiming in.

Heck yea I am!!! I have been braced since august 2007 and I was really pro-braces for a while....if my teeth didn’t hurt after an adjustment I was disappointed. I was happy with my changing mouth...but now the progress has slowed and the once somewhat annoying things have become extremely annoying. For instance flossing...for some reason I am back to a place where I am finding it hard to floss, the constant biting my lip when I eat or talk. Oh and just the constant awareness of my teeth. The newness is definitely off. Oh and a friend of mine got braces 6 months after I did and she is always complaining that she wished she got the metal braces on top instead of the ceramic like I had suggested (I have ceramic on top). She is being very negative about the experience when I have been very positive. But...I still see the light at the end of the tunnel...one day very soon my teeth will be straight!

I've had these braces for over a year and I am so ready to get them off. It's not that I want them off the way they are now, Im just ready for my smile 2b finished. I just joined the website and I am so glad to know that there is somebody out there that feels the way I do. I still have another year to 1 1/2 so I'm just trying to think about how great my smile is going to be and that seems to keep me going. My 5-year old thinks my braces are so cool. Every week he says Mama, I want some braces. If he only could understand how painful and annoying they really are....lol

Everyone seems to go through this. We just have to work through it.

Don't let it become part of you or an identity. Kids (teens) do it just like we do and it doesn't seem to become an issue.

It's nice that we have this place to vent our frustrations though, I do agree!!!

Live your life, hating it seems to be normal, but it will end!!!! Then it will become a tiny part of your past and your teeth and bite will be amazing.

I can hardly remember how annoying and inconvenient it was to have braces and it was only 19 months ago.

Hope you feel better soon!!

I'm at the 23 month mark. I haven't a clue when they'll be done. I need jaw surgery before I finish the journey. I had hoped to do it this summer but that didn't happen. I'm still waiting on insurance approval. When that happens I can either do it in November or next summer due to being a college teacher. After surgery I will probably have another twelve months or longer.

When I get tired of braces I think of where I was when I started. I know this was still a good decision and am happy with it.

Braces don't define me nor limit me. I do that. They require care but so does a lot of other thinks in my life. I remind myself that this is something I'm doing for myself instead of being done to me.

Of course, I am frustrated waiting for insurance approval.

Mike

Yeah, I'm venting as well.

I'm so over mine as well! I want to let them stay on until they can't be any better BUT Ireally wish that were now.
I'm having a hard time with all the extra work that's needed to fix my teeth.
The prices are WAY stupid and total robbery to say the least in denistry. Really, that takes a whole bunch of the fun straight out of it knowing you can't afford to do what's really needed now.
I'd like to do things now and redo a few old fillings now and a couple crowns and implant. But the price is of a new car!!!

Stupid I tell ya.

So yeah, you are not alone!

I've just passed the 2 year mark and I maybe have another year to do, if everything goes to plan. The only thing that irritates me and makes me want them off is the cleaning. I brush my teeth thoroughly at least twice a day and I floss maybe 4x a week.

But yesterday I still had to spend an hour scraping tartar from round my lower brackets and from in between my front lower teeth. It just so happened that the bright sun shining in my bathroom window yesterday morning, highlighted every stain. I never had stained teeth before braces, but with all the extra hardware iun my mouth, I always seem to miss bits, and the amount of tea and coffee I consume soon starts to show on my teeth. I just wish I could take the braces off once in a while so I could give my teeth a damn good scrubbing!

I have just passed the one year mark of a 12 month estimated treatment program. I am not ready for debonding yet. My guess is three more months. I want it done right and get bothered when the ortho staff says "only one more visit" when I know that's not going to do it!

HOW on earth am I even going to live through one full year and a half (and only that I hope!) of this ordeal???

I will certainly go through 100 blenders (I should buy stocks in blender companies!), and my tongue will be raw like sand paper! I will become a bite-phobic and probably also become fat and--I am already ugly!!!

Can I just, like, cry now?

(Thanks so much all for being there!!!)