My daughters used the dental wax they give you to soften the edges. That, and Tylenol.
Oh, and if I had to do it all over again, I’d insist on a permanent retainer. My daughter didn’t use her retainer regularly, and her teeth have shifted significantly. Now it’s too late to put on a permanent retainer because the teeth aren’t perfectly straight. So we had to pay for another retainer.
Yippee.
Anbesol or clove oil can help with sharp pains, but they won’t help much with the achy soreness. (Clove oil should only be used for 3 days in a row, though, or it becomes irritating to the mucus membranes.)
For the achy soreness (which, yes, can be considerable after adjustments) see what his doctor recommends. Aspirin is pretty much out for kids these days - you just never know when he’s incubating a virus that could trigger Reye’s Syndrome, so it’s best to avoid it entirely unless ordered by a doctor. Many docs will recommend a regimen of ibuprofen and acetaminophen (Tylenol) for adults - not sure about for kids. Ibuprofen and acetaminophen appear to work on different parts of the pain process, so using them together provides more effective pain relief then either one alone. The most annoying thing is that ibuprofen is given every 4 hours and acetaminophen every 6 hours, and you can’t give more acetaminophen too soon and you don’t want gaps in the ibuprofen, so you have to write it down and set alarms or you forget what to take when.
An experienced orthodontist could probably read my entire appliance/braces history through the scars on the insides of my mouth.
My braces were EXCRUITIATING when I first got them on, and ached a little when they were tightened every month.
They also ripped the hell out of my mouth, but now I have lovely straight teeth.
I’ve had them twice now. I don’t remember them hurting that bad when I was a teenager (although my mother apparently does), but I swear the pain is worse this time around.
Also, keep in mind, at 8, you’re not used to dealing with pain much. So just gritting your teeth and plowing through it takes some getting used to.
y’know, I’m not sure it’s so great that we try to make everyone’s teeth perfect. my upper right outer incisor is “sunken in” a bit, and way back our dentist recommended braces. Didn’t get them. apart from that misalignment, my teeth have been fine; I even have all of my wisdom teeth. But I’m sure in the US and A, that misaligned incisor would make me a worthless piece of shit.
honesty, I think a lot of this bullshit comes from our mindless worship of celebrities. They have (or appear to have courtesy of Photoshop) perfect teeth, so of course the rest of us have to as well. The whole meme about “British teeth” isn’t based in the fact that Brits have poor dental hygiene, only that they don’t believe you have to have absolutely perfect dentition to be worth something. I’ve long been warming to that mindset rather than the garbage we aspire to.
Please stop telling your kid to “man up” he is 8. You have no idea what amount of pain he is in. Everyone is different, some folks take more time to recover than others so trying to judge him by what others have gone through is rubbish. I presume you made all the decisions about the braces right - so the poor little bugger is in pain because of something **you **decided to to that **he **really had no choice about and you tell him to “man up”???
Some teething gel might be of use to him - around here it is Bonjela. You cant use it long term though. Or some form of soluble pain killer that he can wash his mouth out with (no swallowing though)
:smack:Hang on I may have got folks mixed up - sorry about that Sateryn76:smack:
In addition to the tooth pain that so many people have mentioned, the biggest problem for me was getting raw spots on the inside of my lips from the metal. This was especially on the lower lip. They hurt like hell, occasionally bled. Covering the metal with paraffin wax helped, but it tended to come loose; I figure I probably swallowed a candle or two during my years in the annals of orthodontia.
8 years old? Shit.
Okay, after reading more stories about braces, I still think not administering any manner of painkiller is barbaric. I still cannot understand why it’s not even offered. While some people seem to be able to “man up” and tolerate the pain, others obviously were miserable and rate the pain as “excruciating.” I do not understand why the pain is not addressed, or why it’s even appropriate to advise someone to just “man up” and deal. If it were a broken leg, you wouldn’t just tell someone to man up and deal; they’d get fucking painkillers.
Sorry for the repetition; I’m having trouble wrapping my brain around purposefully expecting children to just put up with what some would deem excruciating pain. Or why parents are all, “Meh, you’ll live.”* What???*
Well…because to some degree it’s true, at least until we develop completely safe and side effect free painkillers.
Even ibuprofen can chew up a child’s stomach, and some kids are particularly prone to stomach aches already. Reye’s Syndrome, of course, is always a worry. Liver damage, kidney damage, increased bleeding risks…and for narcotics: constipation, excessive sleepiness, respiratory failure…
I absolutely agree that we should be more attentive to kids’ pain, but also remember that these are just the risks we know about in adults…painkillers, even over the counter ones, haven’t been tested on kids. They take the results from adult testing, adjust the dose down and slap it on the label.
*Some amount of “try to bear through it, honey”, as well as distraction, deep breathing, progressive relaxation, aromatherapy, ice and topicals is appropriate, to minimize the amount of drugs we’re pouring into people - and that applies to children as well as adults. But of course painkillers should be used if those doesn’t work well enough on their own.
*Which is the Nice Mom version of, “(wo)man up, kid,” really.
Both my kids have had braces - my daughter had the two phases - which you need to be prepared for with braces on at eight - the ortho said that there is about a 70% chance that with braces on young, you’ll put them on again as a young teen (it was 13 for her). Some of that can be controlled with retainer discipline, but some of it is unanticipated changes to the shape of the face. The plus side to two phases was that neither phase was long.
My ortho puts the brackets on with no wire for a week, you come back and get a starter wire, then you get a bigger wire, then they add rubber bands, then on each trip back, EITHER your rubber bands or your wire got more intense. We had her on Advil the day of the appointment, and nothing after the first day. Lots of appointments, but less pain. And frankly, a kind of expensive way to do it.
With my son, he had an appliance that hurt - but his braces were invisalign and that was easy.
Apparently (and I learned this at family week at rehab, so no cite) there is also a link between families that medicate for “every little thing” and self medication and addiction later. If every little pain gets an Advil, every night where junior has a hard time sleeping gets Benedryl, every sniffle gets a dose of cold medicine, you are more likely to medicate yourself into a problem when you grow up and have to deal with every little thing (Dealing with it with ice cream isn’t much better :))
Some kids are whiners. Some kids aren’t. The trick is to react appropriately. With my son, I know that appliance HURT because the kid has bone bruises that he hasn’t said hurt, but this hurt. My daughter - much more of a whiner - but years of parenting her have taught me to tell the difference between the “I bumped myself and now want attention” whine and the “I have a migraine and am in so much pain I wish my head would explode” request for intervention. (She does get migraines).
It’s been 4 days since the original post. By now I expect the kid’s back on solid foods and is feeling fine.
Just sayin’. 
He’s not completely wrong. The 3 - 4 days after tightening are the worst but dull aching continued a lot of the rest of the time and I got headaches more-or-less daily. Braces are the reason I can dry swallow pills - I needed to be able to take paracetamol (tylenol) with no access to water at school. The brackets scratch your mouth constantly, and nearly 20 years later the insides of my cheeks are still scarred from where the wires ripped them to shreds.
My teeth are mostly pretty straight and nice to look at but it was quite frankly not worth the two years of pain I went through.
Tru dat. It took about three days, and he never really mentions it at all now. No complaints about pain, and no complaints about being poked, or headaches or anything else.
Hopefully, it will be okay from here on out!
Figure on a rough few days every time you take him in. I was usually okay for a few hours and by that night my teeth were pretty sore and hurt every time I’d bite down on something for the next few days. Soft foods for the next few days. Braces suck, but he’ll survive.
And once they come off, he has to wear the retainer for at least a few years. You’ll literally be able to watch the teeth move out of position when brackets break off. You don’t want all the pain and money to be for nothing.
He’ll probably have some minor discomfort for the 24 - 36 hours after each appointment if there’s a major adjustment. NOTHING like what he’s been through. And if it’s a minor adjustment, not much discomfort. Maybe plan softer foods for meals on those days. I’m not talking about a liquid diet, but maybe soft tacos instead of crunchy tacos. Pasta would be good. And mashed, not fried potatoes.
Oh, I just remembered this. Bad news. Corn on the cob is probably verboten now. Sorry. 
We went to the movies tonight (Turbo - actually pretty good!) and he couldn’t have popcorn. He was more disappointed by not getting to have a piece of sister’s gum.