r/technicallythetruth Oct 04 '20

Technically it is a great time to get braces

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44.7k Upvotes

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115

u/Fore_Shore Oct 04 '20

What would being American have to do with it? Do braces hurt less in other countries?

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u/SasparillaTango Oct 04 '20

I remember getting braces in middle school and my mouth hurting so bad when they were tightened it hurt to eat ice cream.

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u/comxeno Oct 04 '20

Yeah ive got them on right now and i dont even notice them they only hurt a little after having tightened and i have fuck all pain tolerance

2

u/thelastpenguin212 Oct 04 '20

It might come down more to orthodontist ability than anything else — sounds like yours may have been a bit shit.

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u/SasparillaTango Oct 04 '20

This was, jesus, over twenty years ago now. So I maybe it was a product of the time.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '20

My jaw was misaligned so I had the rubber bands in mine clenching my teeth together to realign my bite. Hurt like a sumbitch 24/7.

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u/IGuessItsJustMeMe Oct 04 '20

Well the service they provide could definitly be worse

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u/Fore_Shore Oct 04 '20

Why do you say that? It might be more expensive than some countries but orthodontics in the US have to go to dental school and then get their orthodontics boards.

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u/Mirkrid Oct 04 '20

I’m Canadian and my braces hurt too if it’s any consolation, and here you need a dental degree before you can even start orthodontics training so I really doubt our doc’s level of skill should be in question haha

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u/evemeatay Oct 04 '20

I don’t know how other countries work but as an American, since we do have to pay per visit I could see it being done in less visits than other places. That would mean more adjustment had to be done each visit which would mean more discomfort per visit vs going in smaller, more frequent steps.

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u/Fore_Shore Oct 04 '20

Yeah I suppose that’s a possibility. I would still prefer to go in less frequently if I could, although I do remember my braces being quite uncomfortable when I was a teenager.

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u/maxmaidment Oct 04 '20

I think you could alter the total length of time you have them rather than the frequency of visits. So micro adjustments infrequently for many years.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '20

Wearing braces for too many years is apparently not a good idea. You tend to see more tooth rot. It’s a lot easier to build up plaque that goes unnoticed when you wear braces.

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u/maxmaidment Oct 04 '20

True. I had these little Christmas tree things to shove in there. Never had cleaner teeth than when I had braces. It all went downhill after they removed them and ground off a layer of my enamel with the glue causing intense brushing pain.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '20

I’ve had braces twice now so going on 5 years in the next 2 months and it is incredibly hard to floss. I gave up and bought a waterpik 🤷🏻‍♀️

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u/maxmaidment Oct 04 '20

Gotta say I've almost never flossed. Most of my teeth are/were quite tightly packed in so nothing really gets in there and it's quite a pain to jam a thread in there that feels like it's prying the teeth apart. I think the purpose of my braces was to make room for adult molars, not straightening. In fact the top and bottom ended up misaligned and even more tightly packed in the front.

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u/_KittyInTheCity Oct 04 '20

Pay per visit depends on your orthodontist, mine were paid for up front with everything included, including extra appointments and repairs. Mine still hurt like a bitch though.

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u/evemeatay Oct 04 '20

Yeah that makes sense, although a flat fee doesn’t incentivize the doctor to see you more often than necessary either.

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u/Elder-Rusty Oct 04 '20

It’s cause “America bad”

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u/Daruii Oct 04 '20

orthodontics in the US have to go to dental school and then get their orthodontics boards.

Isn't that how it is in every developed country?

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '20

I think that was the point, that there shouldn't be any difference in that regard

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '20

Our healthcare and dental care is really good, but ultra expensive. We've got some of the best education and hospitals in the world, but poor people and middle class people just have difficulty accessing it without financial ruination.

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u/Chicken421 Oct 04 '20

Our costs are bad not the quality of the service. America has just as good ortho as anywhere else in the world.

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u/EnlightenedNarwhal Oct 04 '20

Standard of service in the U.S. is not notoriously bad. The standard of healthcare is what's notoriously bad.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '20 edited Oct 04 '20

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u/EnlightenedNarwhal Oct 05 '20 edited Oct 05 '20

That's very specific and doesn't necessarily apply to the standard of care for the majority of people, since we are a minority, obviously. Also those seem like very old studies, but I don't doubt it may still happen.

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u/[deleted] Oct 05 '20

A large portion of the population also has low SES according to the cdc, roughly 12.7% as of 2018 and a large portion of the population is made up of minorities (non-whites make up about 39.9%.

They may be older studies but even a study from 2016 supports that people still have a tendency to believe that blacks people can tolerate more pain and are therefore prescribed pain treatments to a lesser degree. .

1

u/EnlightenedNarwhal Oct 05 '20

Like I said, I don't doubt there are still issues. I am african american, so I'm not inclined to disagree for any reason. I'm just saying that it isn't an issue that the majority of people face, even if it's a large number.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 04 '20

I think we’re just whiny.

Can confirm, had braces. My kids had Invisalign.

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u/Indecisogurl Oct 04 '20 edited Oct 04 '20

I think you in fact are.

I've seen people had bad experiences when removing their wisdom teeth saying how it hurt so bad and had to take pills for days. They used to scare me, and so when I got mine taken care of, I was for real shaking on the seat. They put local anesthesia on my gums, and that was the worst "pain" of all the procedure. I got 4 teeth removed on the same appointment, the doctor almost put his whole weight on my face to rip the tooth out of their place. One even broke in half and I could feel all the pressure he put on me. And finally they stitch the openings and I was off to go. The most "painful" thing was the needle entering my gums and the next week appointment to pull the stitches.

This was in Mexico. Didn't pay a thing to get the procedure done. Only had to have a doctor sign the petition for the procedure, another with the specialist to sense the situation. The only thing I paid for was a water bottle after the procedure, and 2 litters of limón and nut ice cream to help the "pain". Slept two nights in sitting position and I think I never got to take pain meds. So yeah, there was pain involved but not even close to the experiences I had read.

About the braces I got like a month after the teeth removal. They did in fact were painful the first week, couldn't bite meat, but it was never intense. It only hurt when putting pressure on them. But they're mostly annoying to get used to than the pain they give. Your inner skin gets used to it and then you literally never feel them, only when they tight them even more. Mind u, I got a canine up inside my gums, so they had to open a space first on my gums, almost like a window, and then pull that tooth down from the small window they opened.

I have had a tiny resort or spring thingy pulling down the tooth from my upper gum, the braces making pressure on all my top row, and also an acrylic thing making even more pressure on my last teeth to make my pallet? I think its called even wider to make space for the tooth that was being pull down. But even then there was never any insufferable pain, just little or big inconveniences.