Any of you ladies have braces in the past?

...It's 1.5 hours before my official banding/bracketing appointment... I'm getting traditional braces with the clear ceramic squares. Everyone says I should have gotten them at least ten years ago, but I suppose late is better than never.

For those of you who know the experience, what horror stories were overrated/underrated?
What was worse than you thought/ better than you thought? Please send feedback

Thanks,
Anais

You have my sympathies.  I never had braces, but I did wear a retainer for several years.  I remember gagging on it continually for the first couple of weeks  :P

I'm sure you will love the results of your braces, you just have to bear with the hassles until they are removed.

Thank you, Bikerbraid... oh, and the other thing: If I didn't have long hair, I'd feel really ugly and gross right now. These braces have a way of making the mouth feel humongous, like I'd eaten a kitchen appliance without flossing afterwards. Thanks, Longlocks :)

You will get used to having all the "junk" on your teeth.  And when you finally get them removed, you won't believe how wonderful it will feel!!

I had braces! The process of putting them on didn't hurt at all, but your teeth feel a bit weird for a while after. This happens when you go for tightenings too. Retainers aren't that bad. I find that it was way too overrated, and it doesn't hurt that much at all  ;)

Thank you Leia, that's really great to hear... My ortho hasn't put in the high-tension wires (gotta have four bicuspids extracted first), so right now it's just the gigantic junk and pokiness. The heavier pain isn't for another month and a half.
:) Anais has never been happier to have long hair :) to feel gorgeous despite her hardware ======:)

Hey Anais, I was reading through some older threads and came across this one...just wondering how the wonderful world of 'dontics is treating ya.  Do you still have your braces on?  I had braces not once, but twice...yuck!  Let that be a lesson to always, ALWAYS wear your retainer when your supposed to!  The second time I got the clear brackets, too, and now I have a permanent wire on the back of my teeth to keep them in place...you know, so I don't have to find out if third time's really a charm.  Just curious if you look like this yet  ;D !

Hi Maggie, I've still got another year to go (I think, but maybe less :)) I have the clear brackets on the uppers, so it's not that bad. My earliest fears were "looking like a kid" or having to escape after a luncheon to brush my teeth, or something professionally awkward, but I'm glad that adults with orthodontic work nowadays are quite common. my teeth are relatively straight now and the overjut has been fixed for the most part. I went from a 8mm overjut to a 4mm overjut and my top teeth are now perpendicular to the ground......!  :o

Anais

I had brace somce and had to get 4 teeth removed in order to do it. In my case it qas pretty painful because the rubber bands along with the braces equalled pain. I guess that it they were independant of eachother it wouldn't be so bad. It took me a day or two to begin eating solid foods as well. But it's worth it because my teeth are now perfectly straight.

Get a waterpic!!  You won't believe the gunk that gets stuck in your braces and it feels good on sore gums, too.

Yay for the progress Anais Satin!  Personally, for me the top wire should be off around Christmas time (would be a lot more sure if my orthodontist didn't work for onlyy two days a week!) From another person who also has braces (well I am 16), there are really tiny toothbrushes you can buy (made by TePe) which get under the wire and have the handle as the case.  You can just put it in a pocket.

Alos, you have to atek care on how you brush. I dodn't do so well with brshing and had to rinse and do other things to get food out with my braces. Somtimes with the utmost attention, youcna still gte stains on your teeth that ony come out throught bleaching.

Those interdental brushes are my BEST FRIENDS.  :-*

oh brother, i think i wore the kind you can take out for over a decade. i had a too small mout., finally they did remove two premolar teeth as well to get some more space. if i think back of it, i would have prefered to have kept my vampire teeth though  :'(

my advice with those braces: brush very often, the only bad thing i heard about them is that they leave traces on your teeth when removed. whitening them afterwards can remove it i guess.

ABSOLUTELY - one of the most important advice I received last year was to use whitening toothpaste (which I did anyway) to avoid getting those white stencil squares from the ortho brackets. The really cool thing about clear brackets is you can see any appearance of color difference and keep up on it.

Had some fine-tuning done yesterday when the ortho used really precise pliers to put kinks in my upper wire. Also some lacing, regular powerchain on lowers, and a measure of overjut - only 3mm!!!!!! ;D (pre-ortho measurement was 8, measurement two months ago was 4, ideal is 2) ;D I feel like a little kid jumping up and down about good news.

Wow, this was a really old thread.
I hope it's helped young/older visitors who are considering or working with braces.

Anais

hee-hee, I pulled out a "moldy-oldy"!

[glb]HUZZAHH! [/glb]

Great for you Anais!

Like Maggie, I too had braces twice. :(  I didn't wear my retainer the first time around so again, like Maggie, I now have a metal bracket on the back of my teeth to prevent them from moving again.  

I only got my second set of braces removed about 3 years ago and when my dentist was removing them, she decided to take that time to tell me that she could've completely removed my overbite by removing 2 teeth, but SHE decided that I didn't need it.  I actually could have strangled her!  I hate my overbite, and had been told so many times by other orthodontists that there was nothing that could be done so, I didn't even bother bringing it up to her.  I only wish she had informed me of all of my options before SHE made the decision as to what I did or didn't need. I've even been thinking of going in for round 3 but I'm still not sure.

I made the very "smart" decision to get Zoom whitening and a cleaning the same day I got my braces removed.  BIG MISTAKE!  I typically love going to the dentist but, that day by the time I left, my usual sunny disposition had completley vanished.  My teeth had become so sensitive from all that was done that day, that when I was laying in bed that night, I thought to myself that if I didn't feel better soon I would have ALL of my teeth pulled.  So if you haven't removed your braces yet (I know this is an old thread) please, DO NOT make my mistake.  I can report that my pain completely went away and I do still have all of my teeth ;D  Oh, and my orthodontist said that after my experience, they'll no longer do so many procedures on anyone at one time.

Oh my... it's more than forty years since I had my braces removed and I still remember those fun four years.  I had to have eight teeth removed (two on each side, upper and lower - including my wisdom teeth) to make them fit my mouth.  The first four were done before the braces.  The last four were done afterwards because the wisdom teeth began to push my teeth forward again.  I wore a retainer for a year (or was supposed to, but I was seventeen and stubborn).  Memories....