Metal Mouth Message Board

The instructions my ortho gave me with my elastics say it takes 10 hours for the elastics to do anything, but if I take them off for 45 minutes it sets me back 10 hours. Sounds like if I take them out to eat I'm looking at another half day of treatment. Is this true? Reminds me of when the doc who prescribed my contact lenses told me a dog's mouth is cleaner than a human's. "Have you been licking your contacts? Would you want a dog to lick your contacts?"

Translation: Wear them as much as you can or else. It's the one area you have full control over in your treatment. If u don't wear them the elastic fairies will take pics of you not wearing them and send them to your orthodontist. And they will them put you on thier wall of shame. And everyone who comes in will laugh at you.

Your ortho will have to tell you if you need to take them out to eat. Depending on the configuration, this may or may not be actually possible.

Certainly, keep a baggie of elastics with you at all times, along with a pocket mirror to assist in placement.

Ziggy wrote:The instructions my ortho gave me with my elastics say it takes 10 hours for the elastics to do anything, but if I take them off for 45 minutes it sets me back 10 hours. Sounds like if I take them out to eat I'm looking at another half day of treatment. Is this true? Reminds me of when the doc who prescribed my contact lenses told me a dog's mouth is cleaner than a human's. "Have you been licking your contacts? Would you want a dog to lick your contacts?"

I always put them off during eating. It was just impossible for me to eat with them, it hurt so much.
I finally wore them for one year and a half which was the estimated time by the ortho during the beginning of the treatment.

I take mine out to eat most everything. Exceptions are chocolate that I can just melt on my tongue, and pudding. Some soft serve ice cream. Anything I have to chew, the elastics have to come out because it's so awkward in there with them in. But they go right back in as soon as I'm done. I'm trying so very hard to be a good little patient, because I know I'm going to be in elastics for the bulk of my treatment (got them after 7 weeks) so if I lapse, my treatment is just going to be that much longer.

But I've never heard that taking them out for 45 minutes sets you back 10 hours. That seems awfully specific for something that is highly individual based on how teeth are responding.

I doubt there is any truth in that...there are a lot of factors that determine how long treatment takes in general. I agree with oldfart that the patient is in full control of how well they stick to wearing elastics. Failing to wear them at all would be worse than taking them out to eat.

Thanks all for the prompt replies. I do wear them when I eat, or at least I try to. Sometimes they pop off depending on what I eat.

I was instructed to wear elastics at night only... makes me wonder what for if you're set back every time you take them out?!

Sometimes teeth only need a little pressure to move, or to stay put after being moved. Sometimes they need a lot of consistent pressure. Trust your ortho.. That's why you are paying them the big bucks. (but feel free to ask them. I drove mine nuts with questions).

It might be true, regardless i never ate for 45 minutes, maybe 20 minutes, but not much longer, and it seems i may (or may not) be done with elastics completely

Curious, how wide can you open your mouth comfortably with elastics? It seems like you wouldn't be able to yawn or really open your mouth as you normally would. Or have a big laugh without snapping one or being constricted. Is speech affected at all? My next adjustment is to square wires and probably elastics so it sounds like a double whammy of pain and discomfort.

I didn't notice any speech changes with my elastics, I have class 2. If I'm concentrating I can tell I don't open as wide when I'm eating something like ice cream with a spoon, but nothing that hinders anything. The only time I've had one pop off is when I'm trying to put them on, or when I don't get it seated tight enough on the hook and it snaps off 30 seconds later. I got reverse curve wires at the same time they gave me elastics. The pain still wasn't as bad as when I first got braces. Mostly just pressure.

That's like your mom telling you when you were little that if you don't eat your veggies, you won't get dessert.

So wear your elastics more often than not.

Or you can be like me, the last four months of my treatment, I kept asking if I could have more elastics in more places.

True story.. But I also had a hard deadline. After moving I could only afford six more months of treatment. So found someone who would do six months for $1500. So knew braces would be coming off at that point regardless, so was trying to fix as much as possible. At night I was running eight or so to where it was so tight I could not open my mouth if I tried. And during the day it was six of the strongest. With that I could at least open it a 1/2 inch or so.