First 48 hours with a lingual brace: pain

{via The Curious Brain}

Overall, I think I’d have to say that my first 48 hours with my lingual brace has been as expected: it hurts a bit, I lisp a bit, it’s a bit hard to eat.

I’d describe my top brace as sore, but not painful. For about the first twelve hours I wasn’t in pain at all. When I woke up on the first day I noticed one of my teeth aching a little – the kind of feeling you’d get if you pressed on a tooth really hard – I was meeting a friend that morning so I took some ibuprofen just in case it got worse and didn’t feel anything more after that. One or two of my teeth hurt if you press them now, but ordinarily they’re fine.

At the end of day one I could definitely feel my tongue starting to bother me – a kind of raw sensation and a bit of redness around the edge where it’s in contact with the brackets but no ulcers yet. It definitely helps to use some wax or Gishy Goo on the brackets and wires you can feel the most. At night I put Gishy Goo over all of the front four brackets as I knew my tongue would be resting there and that really helped. I also used a mouth ulcer product called Iglu over the sore edge of my tongue which was amazing (I will write a full product review here at some point). I’d definitely recommend you get some so you can treat any sore areas before they get too bad.

One thing I would say is that I sleep with my mouth closed, but if you normally sleep with your mouth open try not too… I can imagine the pain on your tongue overnight would be much worse if your mouth was dry. I’ve heard that nasal strips (the sort you can buy for a cold) can help.