I had braces for 2ish years because of my overbite. They had to remove 4 permanent teeth first, ouch!

I've never had anything (cavities, braces, retainers) except a mouthguard for grinding my teeth, which I only had for half a year. It felt like a giant ice cube wrapped around my teeth.

I had braces but never the real headgear. I always felt terrible for those kids - they got so much crap.

It's not traumatic, but I have something like an extra tooth growing out of my gums. Before you say that teeth are supposed to come out of the gums, i mean that it's coming out the side of my gums.

I also have a backed up gland in my mouth.

Oh yeah, baby. Headgear all the way.

I also had a twin block retainer for a year and a half which made me lisp like nobody's business.

It was right during my awkward 5th grade years, too, and I wrote notes to people instead of talking so as to avoid imminent embarrassment.

It did wonders for my penmanship.

i never had headgear or anything...

but it did bust my front tooth in 5th grade diving through a hoolahoop

haha

so... one of my front teeth is fake

oh yeah, I wore it like a champ!!!



actually, biggest geek ever..... = me! Thank god I only had to wear it at night, there was a guy in my class that had to wear it all the time....yikes!

I had the ever-dreaded palette expander prior to getting braces. It has a crank and a key and you have to crank it everyday and it basically widens the roof of your mouth by cracking the bone.

Sound gross? You should've heard the sound. :-D

About the dentist: I'm used to it, but the drilling.
Oh god, I hate the drilling. The sound just makes it 5642543 times worse and my ipod wouldn't block it out.

I don't really quite remember what I had when I was in second grade, but it was this metal rim on the top of my mouth.
Was it for over bite? I'm not sure.

I sucked my thumb for awhile though.

The only one in my school that had headgear and never got made fun of was this one kid who was like two grades behind and MASSIVE. Nobody said a word.

Oh, I forgot to mention that i had a 1/4in. gap between my two front teeth from the thing. I was the sexiest 7th grader around.

Ooooh. Headgear. And a expander on the top of my mouth with braces on the top few teeth cause they were seriously messed up.

But I think my headgear was too small for my head because when I woke up in the morning, the chin thingy was practically embedded in my face.

no headgear for me, but I had every other kind of dental appliancee... from grade 4 to 10 I had all kinds of retainers and lip bumpers and spacers and braces and on and on. It wasn't the best time in my life.

shibby558899: That's actually really, really sweet. The tooth thing, I'm not sure about the gland.
Does saliva jet out of your mouth? haa. I did that a few seconds ago. My friend can do that when ever, and she always gets it on me.

Torakamikaze - My friend who can spew saliva at you like a squirt gun also has this clear retainer with a fake tooth on it.
Hers never grew it place, it's awesome.

My friends are great.

gotMOXY: Sounds fabulous. :D
You're like a robot!

I knocked my sister's tooth out when I was a kid. On two separate occasions. The same tooth! She was toothless from when she was 2 'till she was 8 (or however old you are when your front teeth come in) then I knocked it out again.

Last Summer I got my braces off.

Don't think I ever really needed them but whatever.

this is kind of gross, but I don't care. Uhm, I had braces, I had to get them removed midway through the process, anyways, I didn't listen to my dentist's advice where I should brush my teeth really hard. In fact, I didn't brush my teeth enough, and when I did, it was really soft. Anyways, a few years and some really enflamed gums later, I finally decide to go to the dentist because I have to take responsibility for my own health. I get a thorough cleaning, and I've been brushing well ever since.. the only issue is that a couple of my front teeth have these weird bracket shadows on them, like, you can see the outline of my brackets. it's pretty lame, anyways, bottom line, brush your teeth, or they'll look gross, or they'll fall out.

I knocked out my brothers tooth with a baseball bat. C:

Pear:
I brush my teeth twice a day!
That's not really gross though.
Not as gross as used tampons in Chinese food.

i had braces (and neck gear) starting when i was in fifth grade. so the first problem i had was an infection in the gums surrounding my left back molar where the bracket was. nobody knew what the problem was, so they sat me down and were going to give me a root canal at age 11. i kicked the endodontist and ran out of the office. it cleared up with penicillin.

a year or so later, it came back, and then they cleaned it out with surgery.

when i was in 9th grade, i needed braces again because one of my eyeteeth wasn't coming in. so they did another surgery and dug up through my gums to find the tooth and attach a brace to it. to the brace they attached a gold chain that was attached to the rest of the braces. over a year, they tugged on the chain and brought the tooth in. but then they realized that they pulled it down backwards! it took another 6 months to turn it around.

two years later through the x-rays, they found out that i had a cyst in my jaw where the infection had been. it had been growing for the previous 5 years but nobody had noticed. it was the size of a grape. so i had surgery to remove that too. it was successful, but for a month or so afterward the anesthesia in my chin refused to wear off, so i had pins and needles there for a really long time.

so yes. i do believe i have the world's shittiest teeth. i'm lucky they look alright now.

Holy crap, that's horrible!
Sounds really painful too.
I'm sorry you had to go through that.

hahah. yeah. i'm glad it's over. i'm not looking forward to getting the two wisdom teeth i still have out. i'm trying to see if they'll just let me keep them ;-)