Braces--as in the kind for your teeth

[TxRider]

I also had braces as an adult and just got them off about 4 years ago. I guess I was lucky because, for the most part, I didn't really have much pain or soreness other than when they put the spacers in.

As others have mentioned, I ate pretty much everything that I had before the braces were on without trouble - I also had the metal kind. I found that it became more of an issue when the braces came off & I had to wear the retainers 24/7. That was a bit of a problem on long bike rides, but workable.

I also have the retainers that are the Invisalign sort -- I don't know how they compare to the traditional ones, but I ended up needing a crown on one of my teeth and then the retainer no longer fit properly. Fortunately, the crown went on a tooth in the back of my mouth, so my dentist was able to trim the retainer to fit.

As the others have said, it greatly improved my smile and I'd do it again in a heartbeat - good luck to you!

[jobob]

I had braces a couple of years ago (when I was around 45), but just on my bottom teeth. My bottom teeth were extremely crooked and I was very self-concious about them. I had the braces for about 13 months, and now I wear a retainer on my bottom teeth about 10 hrs a day.

A couple of added benefits of the braces that I hadn't counted on:

Before the braces I had a terrible nail-biting habit. But, after over a year of not being able to bite my nails, I was cured. It's so nice to have nails now.

I had to chew veerryy slowly, so slowly that I would actually get bored of eating! Plus, it was such a hassle to clean my braces after snacking, I simply wouldn't snack. The combination of the smaller meals & no snacking made me lose a LOT of weight (about 15-20 pounds) pretty quickly - some thought too quickly. People actually asked me if I had been sick, and my GYN even suggested I put a few pounds back on, something I never thought I'd hear in my lifetime. As she put it, "Honey, when you get to be our age, it comes off our faces first".

Alas, once the braces came off I managed to put some (but not quite all) of that weight back on.