Metalmouth.

I'm wearing braces now for the first time at 22. I've had them on for about a year, and will be having them removed in about 6 months.

When you first get them you won't care about the pain, you'll just be conscious of having GIGANTIC metal blocks glued to your teeth, I really can't emphasise how HUGE they feel, pressing and rubbing against your lips constantly. It's easy to think "it's okay, the pain goes soon enough", but it's harder to imagine that all that metal will at some point become unnoticable. But it does, and it doesn't take long.

So after the initial installation they're pretty easy to live with and you stop thinking about them. The only pain involved is once every 6 weeks or so when you go to get them tightened, and that goes away after about a day. The major annoyance is getting certain food stuffs stuck in them, but this isn't nearly a problem as you might think it will be, and mostly only happens with 'stringy' food, like chewed chicken. It's funny getting spaghetti interweaved between in all the wires, with the weird sensation afterwards of stripping it out with your fingers. I say funny, only I don't dine out at italian restaurants. But really, I haven't had to avoid changing my eating habits at all, I just try to avoid cracking nuts and opening bottle caps with my teeth.

That's it really. No stories, no wild anecdotes to tell my grandkids. Just another boring part of everyday life that you live with and don't think about.

Jam it back in, in the dark.