Braces-half my diet has been eliminated!

[DirtDiva]

Ack! Headgear! Thank goodness I only had to wear it at night! I totally cheered when the orodontist told me I didn't have to wear it anymore. It's been, hmmm, eleven years since I got my braces off and I still have scar tissue on the inside of my cheeks where the bits the headgear slotted into rubbed. As for the food groups, I ate them all and just got real good at sucking bits out of my braces afterward (a habit that took quite some time to break once the hardware had been removed).

[Kitsune06]

Ack! Headgear! Thank goodness I only had to wear it at night! I totally cheered when the orodontist told me I didn't have to wear it anymore. It's been, hmmm, eleven years since I got my braces off and I still have scar tissue on the inside of my cheeks where the bits the headgear slotted into rubbed. As for the food groups, I ate them all and just got real good at sucking bits out of my braces afterward (a habit that took quite some time to break once the hardware had been removed).

I second this completely, though the only reason I ended up breaking that habit was getting my tongue pierced.


That said, it never feels 'normal' and you'll have that sorta rough feeling along your cheeks and insides of your lips, but the anchors (around your molars?) will eventually feel fairly natural... except for tune-ups. Oddly, the entire experience made tongue-piercing a non-event for me.

Using a camelback while racing yesterday was quite an experience. I had to stick it waaaay back by my molars and try to gently squeeze... I wound up not drinking very much (only about 50 oz. during a 2.5 hour race) which isn't good.

I got really good at using my tongue to apply pressure to things like that, squishing it against the roof of my mouth. If you're wearing a bite-plate as with headgear, that might be interesting, but with the bare roof, it should work out for you. It gets scraped a little until it toughens up (the roof of your mouth, that is) but it's a very valuable skill.