First Impressions

As I mentioned earlier, the first thing I did was have a salad and knock one of my metal buttons off. In retrospect, I should have started with something a bit more soft. When the trays are out, all the attachments protrude, and they're really rough and tend to catch stuff. I feel like food is just stuck all over the fronts of my teeth while I'm eating. It helps to rinse with water several times throughout dining. As weird as the trays feel in my mouth, it feels even worse with them out, so there really is no relief.

And the trays do feel weird. They feel like a giant obstruction. Sometimes I suddenly become keenly aware of them and have the instinct to just rip them out of my mouth. It's hard to describe the sensation, almost like a sudden claustrophobia. I feel like they are really cumbersome, and that people must notice them when I talk. 

Now let's talk about the pain. The inside edge of the lower tray is a little rough and my tongue rubs against it when I'm talking, so it has created some general soreness on my tongue. Same thing with my gums and lips. The soreness from the pressure of the tooth movement is not bad, I mainly only notice it when I put the trays in after they've been out for awhile. THAT can be painful. It also hurts to bite with my front teeth. For instance, if I were to bite into a sandwich, cutting with my front teeth, it would hurt like crazy. Instead, I've gone to either pulling my food apart into bites, or at least only putting a little pressure with my teeth, and then kind of tearing off a bite instead of biting right through. I have been taking quite a fare pain pills.

I'm consciously trying to not fixate my tongue on them. The natural instinct to to explore them constantly with my tongue, but I'm trying to avoid creating any extra soreness by doing this. If I catch myself doing it, I try to switch to rubbing against only smooth surfaces instead of the edges. 

Also, they interfere with normal salivation, so I feel like I have dry mouth most of the time, especially towards the front. At first I was chugging water left and right to compensate, but after so many trips to the bathroom I realized I had to dial it down a bit.

Overall it's a bigger deal than I thought. I can't wait until I get completely used to them and are no longer even aware that they are there.