But RG, if it helps any, I was back to chewing pretty normally after a few weeks, and I'm back to eating most types of food now - the only major exceptions being the nut and caramel food groups.

A lot of foods fall into the "more trouble than they're worth" category at the moment, since tey're such a hassle to either eat or get out of my braces later - corn on the cob, barbeque ribs (oh I do miss them!!) . In theory I shouldn't have popcorn either but it's not much of a problem nowadays (except I have to do an extra round of brushing to get the detrius out, ewwww).

As for your here & now, I found it was much easier to eat salad when I chopped it up finely (think tortilla filling).

Jo, fantasizing about BBQ ribs and corn on the cob & pecan pie, arrghhhh