[sharksfin777]

I just got the palate expander 2 months ago and its worst than I even expected! It is a living nightmare. By the way I'm 14 years old. I'm the only person I know in the world who got it and whenever I see people laughing with their mouth wide open and I see nothing metal at the roof of their mouths you don't know how jealous I am that I need it and they don't. Whenever I see that anger fills my body. The expander is a lot worst than braces. I don't enjoy the braces either, but I don't hate it. It only hurts a bit but the palate expander hurts A LOT.

I have an extremely small mouth. The largest I can open my mouth is 1.8 inches from bottom lip to top lip and 2.3 inches wide (which I just measured). Even inside my mouth is so small that all my teeth are crowding together, got all 4 front teeth sticking out, one tooth in particular sticked out at a 70 degree angle which is what it was like before I got the braces and expander which I got at the same time since most kids get the expander first then get the braces, however I got both at the same time on the same day.

So, the expander after getting it turned each night my jaw has grown to be so wide and larger than my mouth even is since my mouth is really small. Because of that whenever I chew or bite down I keep on biting the sides of my mouth, and before you know it, after each meal the sides of my mouth are all bleeding from biting on it too much and too hard which is hard to avoid! Even my tongue, when I close my mouth the expander is pressing down onto my tongue, if I stick my tongue out people will see a deep and clear marking of the expander on my purple tongue (yes its purple and I don't know why probably has to do with the blood) and my tongue looks like a dead persons tongue! Literally it does! Purple and all squished up looking. Plus, I keep cutting my own tongue with the expander. There's this one spot on the expander that is particularly sharp and I keep cutting my tongue with it! So now my entire mouth is all cut up and bleeding and it really hurts. Plus when the jaw and bones are expanding it hurts as well! Which is giving me a headache.

Some other reasons I hate the palate expander so much (that I haven't mentioned):

1. I am unable to play my clarinet because my tongue has no access to the roof of my mouth meaning I cannot block the wind in between rests in a song using my tongue and the roof of my mouth which is what the music teacher told us to do when there are rests in the middle of a song. Well, I can still play but when I blow I make so much spit coming out of my mouth and I get spit on my pants before which has happened. And also I just can't block the wind as I said.

2. It takes an hour to get my mouth entirely clean by getting the stuff out from my expander like food which has been stuck in there.

3. One of my adult molars were growing in and it is growing between the bars of my expander and I can feel so much pressure when the tooth is trying to grow but can't because its blocked by the expander! I feel bad for that little tooth unable to grow out.

4. Still having speech problems. Cannot make the sounds "SSSSS", "SH", "CH", "J", "EEEEE". Also when I try to make an F or V sound it comes out like a whistling sound -.-

5. The first few days after getting the expander I had so much saliva which made me slurp every few seconds, I tried so hard not to at school though. But it was hard. I don't have as much saliva as I did the first few days but I'm still drooling. When I sleep I wake up finding the corner of my mouth all wet and I even get some on my clothes which is super embarrassing and disgusting! I just can't help it!

6. I am unable to suck on a lollipop when its in my mouth (I can still lick it but I don't like licking it) since the expander just blocks it! Even after the time our teacher awarded us with 2 lollipops after a fabulous performance at the volleyball tournament (since I'm on the team and we won against another school 2 straight games) I gave it to my friends who weren't on the team.

7. It just hurts a lot. I get so much headaches and can feel pain through my jaw bones and they try to just widen my jaw when my mouth isn't even big enough for it.

My friends, even my parents are freaked out about my experience so far with the palate expander. My friends said my tongue looks so scary and it really does looks like the tongue of a dead persons because of the markings the expander has made. So yup! I hate the expander so much! How do I deal with all this pain?

[Wondergirl]

What does your dentist say when you tell him (her?) this?