He’s 8 years old, and got braces yesterday. Neither my husband or I have any experience with braces, but I have always heard they make you teeth and your jaw ache, and I’ve been told it takes a few days to get used to that feeling.
My son has been laying around and occasionally moaning. I told him he has one more day (today) of being miserable, and then it’s back to normal. But I do want to make it as easy as I can for him. We gave him aspirin, but I think most of it is just mental. I can understand from the viewpoint of when I’ve hurt myself - it hurts bad at first, then kinda achy, and then you eventually just forget about it until you realize one day it doesn’t hurt anymore. Is braces pain like that?
Distraction seems to work, but I’m not going to do it for him all the time. How long did it hurt for you guys? Does it hurt all the time until they come off, or just after a tightening? Does anything else help, like jaw exercises or something? He also has the bad luck that when he chews now, the bottom of his top front teeth hit the top of the brackets on his lower front teeth. The doc said that will only change as the teeth move, in a few months.
And, unfortunately, in a stroke of terrible luck, he kneed himself in the mouth yesterday after they were on for less than three hours, and knocked the back bracket off, and most of the one next to it. I called the Ortho, and they said to just trim the wire and they’ll replace the bracket at his next appointment in a month. Does that seem weird to you?
After they get ‘tightened’ you have about 3 or 4 hours before they start hurting, then they hurt like hell for about 3 days, then you’re all good until you go back in.
After going in to get them adjusted my parents would usually treat me (or whichever kid it was) to whatever we wanted for dinner that night. Then you just learned what to eat for the next three days. What was really awful was forgetting that you had them tightened and tossing a handful of M&M’s or something else crunchy into your mouth the next day. It’s not so much that they ache all the time, it’s more that it hurts when you bite down on something.
Rubber bands OTOH are a different story. Those hurt like hell, but they do make a big difference.
That’s pretty much it. Just plan on jello, chocolate pudding, mashed potatoes, soup etc for the two or three days after having them adjusted. But during the three weeks in between, he should be pretty much pain free.
Also, like I said, rubber bands are particularly awful, don’t do what I did and leave them off until two days before the appointment and then double them up. Just leave them on and get it over with.
And, yeah, 8 years seems really young. Does he have all his adult teeth in yet or are they working on something else?
The first time you get braces in they hurt like a fucking bitch for like a week.
After that they feel fine until every time they’re tightened, and then they hurt for like a day. Further along, subsequent tightenings don’t really hurt at all.
I knocked brackets off all the time and FWIW, I was always told to do the same thing. My orthodontist was incompetent though, so take that with a grain of salt.
8 does seem a bit young. I got mine on at 13-14ish or so. It’s probably is a little easier to “man up” when you are a little older, but yea, they hurt for about 3 days. Careful what he has to eat. Chewing can be painful. For dinner after adjustments I would eat about half a meal and then just walk away. Ibuprofen was good.
Be sure to tell him pain builds character and all that. He can now regale his friends/girlfriends/future kids with stories of how awful they were.
I just had a very vivid memory of sloooowly eating McDonald’s french fries. Discarding the crunchy ones, eating only the softest…and not chewing, exactly, but more like slowly squeezing them to swallowable mush.
8 is too young to get braces. I hope they didn’t do any extractions. There’s nothing unusual about waiting for the next appointment when something comes loose.
I remember crying, because I couldn’t touch my teeth to food - not even a pancake - without agonizing pain. And was so, so hungry. One of my worst memories of childhood.
It’s not mental. It hurts. “an aspirin”!? How about I apply a vice your jaw and give you an aspirin and a “buck up junior” speech. Mein gott in himmel.
Please explain something to me. I never had braces, although I needed them and still do, of course. I am currently investigating my insurance companies to find out if one will pay for braces for me as an adult to fix the TMJ, and also, straight teeth.
So my question is this. I keep hearing about how painful it is and how, every time the braces are tightened, the kid wallows in agony. Why don’t orthodontists prescribe painkillers? Even Tylenol 3 would be better than an Advil or aspirin.
I don’t understand. Why is it cool to do something really painful to someone, but not also give any pain relief at all?
If I get braces as an adult, does that mean I’m going to have to go black market painkillers, because I won’t be able to get an orthodontist be treat me humanely? (Yeah, I’ll do what I have to.)
Wow. You even busted out the German. ::rolleyes:: I get it, but it’s going to hurt, and there’s nothing we can do about it. So, why just sit there and mope? I’ve not had braces, but I’ve had knee problems and all sorts of acute, achy pains in my life, and I’ve never been well served by sitting around being unhappy.
I thought 8 was too young as well, but my research says that it’s actually an advantage for certain kinds of problems, since they can X-ray and see what’s coming in, and how to move the current permanent teeth to accommodate the new teeth. He doesn’t have any major jaw issues, thank goodness, and no extractions. They’re looking at about 9 months to a year, with a semi permanent retainer after that. I’m used to how it was when I was growing up, when everyone got them in middle school, but that’s not the norm anymore. Several of his friends (he’s going into third grade) had braces last year.
I’m just hoping to give me a general time frame of pain. I find it easier to bear something if I only have to bear it for a certain time. He’s thinking it’s going to be a year of never ending pain.
Dunno. I got vicodin when I had teeth pulled for my braces and then again when I had my wisdom teeth removed and that’s the extent of my painkilling experience with the exception of OTC stuff. At the time it never occurred to me that this might have been an acceptable time to request something stronger. I suspect it’s because for most kids, a few days of soft food and some maternal cooing have proved satisfactory in the pain management arena.
I got them as an adult. My experience was that it was extremely uncomfortable for exactly three days. I was miserable and I imagine I wouldn’t have taken it so well if I had been 8. Even so, I don’t think it hurt on the level that requires prescription painkillers.
Also, I’d read that everyone thinks it’s agonizing to get them tightened. For me, it hurt for three days after I got them put on and then never again. It didn’t hurt at all after a tightening. In fact, they hurt so little that I asked the orthodontist once or twice if it should hurt more- I feared that complete absence of pain meant they weren’t working, that my teeth weren’t moving. Nope, he said, you’re fine.
It’s not fair for me to predict that for an 8-year-old it won’t hurt because it didn’t hurt me after three days, but it’s possible. Everybody’s different, I guess. For some it’s agonizing, for some it’s not so bad.
The canker sores you get from the sticking-out parts jabbing into your cheek is annoying, though.
I’m getting mine off next month after almost 3 years (I’m now 46). When you get older, the teeth are more resistant to movement and treatment will take longer than that of a child. Orthodontists can prescribe pain killers, but it’s very rare for them to as the pain doesn’t really last that long and is not unbearable. Sure it will hurt and eating will be a pain (heh, heh) for awhile, but just man up and you’ll get through it.
ETA: Or what Turpentine said. Especially about the pain after initial installation and tightening.
Can you affordInvisalign? My wife just got that. It’s way less painful than regular braces, and barely noticeable visually. They have a cost calcutor at the site.
If every ortho prescribed every kid with braces enough T3s to get through 2 or 3 days of pain once a month for three years, I honestly think you’d have a bunch of kids selling them and a quite a few kids graduating high school hooked on opiates.
It REALLY hurts, but, honestly, it’s the ‘man up’ kind of pain, and you very quickly learn to deal with it. It really only hurts when you bite down on something, as opposed to constantly aching. So you get them adjusted and you spend the next three days watching what you eat and making sure you don’t knock your top and bottom teeth into each other. You’ll get through it, just like half of your school mates…and when you’re done you have some war stories to tell.
Fuck that. IME, dental pain is one of the worst. Or, one of the least tolerable to me. I’m a grown-ass adult and I’m not suffering pain unnecessarily. That’s just barbaric.
I’m liking the Invisalign idea. A lot. I just discovered that one of the orthodontists my dentist referred me to does the Invisalign treatment, so I’m calling her first.
