Metal Mouth Message Board

I never thought I'd see the day, but I finally pushed for it to happen all by myself!

I decided I wanted to keep a record of my experience, although my posts may or may not be often due to working two jobs and having very little down time... I want to push myself so that I can keep track of my journey and even see my own progress.

Just to get some insight...
I'm a 19 year old female, suffering from low self-esteem and social anxiety, among other things. I have a feeling that my teeth problems started way back when I was younger, as I was a thumb sucker until I was about 12 or 13, and it was the only way I could comfort myself. I'm assuming it was the thumb sucking that caused quite a few problems with my mouth, including crowded teeth, partially impacted canines, a recessive mandible, 7 mm overjet, etc. When I was younger and in my "prime" for braces and orthodontic treatment, my parents couldn't afford the treatment, as a lot of cases go. So as my wisdom teeth are now coming in, the problem has worsened over the years, and even more so now. I managed to land myself a decent paying job, where I met a girl around the same age as myself. I talked to her about my dream of always wanting braces and she recommended me to a local orthodontist. I pushed myself to get a consultation, and I'm going ahead with treatment from him. Here in a few weeks I get spacers in again, and a week after that, I get my TPA and upper braces on. I'm pretty excited, although pretty nervous as well. I was wondering, those who have had an overjet. did braces seem to help with your mandible positioning in the end, even if only a little?

Thank you~

Congrats for deciding to take the plunge. That's the hardest part, well there's the forking over of thousands of dollars too but ya know. LOL

Congrats on starting your journey!
I wish my mum had gotten me braces as a kid, and coming from the UK she has no excuse why she couldn't. It's free on the NHS! So here I am 32 years old finally getting them done at nearly 4k cost.

Free braces for children in the UK on the NHS are only available if your malocclusion is deemed sufficiently serious. Therefore many children in the UK do not qualify for free treatment. But I suspect this may only have been more strictly applied in recent years.

I hope your 4k turns out to be a good investment.I doubt you will regret it once you are finished.

Good luck with your treatment.

Jem

Nurbles wrote: I was wondering, those who have had an overjet. did braces seem to help with your mandible positioning in the end, even if only a little?

Welcome to the board, Nurbles! I also have an overjet, and I've had braces before as a teenager and now again on the upper arch as an adult to fix the drift that's happened.

To be honest with you, I'm not sure if it helped with mandible positioning or not. My dentist when he was referring me (as a teen), said that my jaw needed to be brought forward, but my treatment seemed to just involve bringing my teeth back rather than moving the jaw forward. I've noticed in recent years that I have quite a weak chin but I'm just happy to live with it, really. Nothing was said about mandible positioning by my ortho back then or now.

What type of braces have you opted for? I have traditional metal

[quote="Aaeolien"]Congrats for deciding to take the plunge. That's the hardest part, well there's the forking over of thousands of dollars too but ya know. LOL[/quote]

Thank you! And true, I'm pretty freaked out with my financial situation right now, I'm also paying $14,000 worth of loans so I'm pretty dead inside, but at least all my expenses should be gone by December or January I'm hoping~

[quote="redwilllow"]Congrats on starting your journey!
I wish my mum had gotten me braces as a kid, and coming from the UK she has no excuse why she couldn't. It's free on the NHS! So here I am 32 years old finally getting them done at nearly 4k cost.[/quote]

Thank you!
I know where you're coming from, it sucks that you could have gotten it but didn't! But I hope all goes well for you now, it's better late than never, right??

[quote="atrixa"][quote="Nurbles"] I was wondering, those who have had an overjet. did braces seem to help with your mandible positioning in the end, even if only a little?
[/quote]

Welcome to the board, Nurbles! I also have an overjet, and I've had braces before as a teenager and now again on the upper arch as an adult to fix the drift that's happened.

To be honest with you, I'm not sure if it helped with mandible positioning or not. My dentist when he was referring me (as a teen), said that my jaw needed to be brought forward, but my treatment seemed to just involve bringing my teeth back rather than moving the jaw forward. I've noticed in recent years that I have quite a weak chin but I'm just happy to live with it, really. Nothing was said about mandible positioning by my ortho back then or now.

What type of braces have you opted for? I have traditional metal [/quote]

Thank you~
My ortho didn't mention anything of bringing my jaw forward so idk, I might be too picky with myself but I'm hoping things will be better as my treatment progresses.
I decided to go with traditional braces, I would rather have faster results and save a bit of money. I don't feel that braces will make me look so terribly ugly that I want to try to conceal them. I like the look of metal ones a bit more ^^'

Too true Nurbles, it's nice to see that you are taking this step early in your life! I will be posting my story soon once I have had my extractions

[quote="redwilllow"]Too true Nurbles, it's nice to see that you are taking this step early in your life! I will be posting my story soon once I have had my extractions [/quote]

I'm pretty excited! When are you due for extractions??

I'm due to see my ortho in about 5 weeks time, I need to get a letter from him to give to my dentist to extract so I don't have a date yet! Fingers crossed it's soon, I really don't want to wait long and end up scaring myself out of it! Scary on one hand but the other, it's very exciting! I want to start seeing improvements lol.

Hey!

I've just got braces and I also have an over jet, one of the main reasons I got braces. My ortho said braces will definitely fix this and it will be by wearing elastics. Hope that helps!! Congrats