First week

Hi and welcome Lovinglife.

The genuine Speed Braces brand name, is one of the many types of self ligating brackets. So you've not got a brand of damon, but instead your brackets and damon are both of the SL type. There's another SL brand called High Speed Braces. I've seen some advertising, but not the brackets, so I have no idea if the claims are even half accurate.

It's interesting you have a brand called 'speed' and yet your treatment time is expected to be as long as the average treatment, and longer than many. I guess this just proves, that a name is just that ... a name!

It's great you're eating well again. The sooner you get back to eating as you usually do, the better your body will feel.

When you next see your ortho ask about the use of rubber bands. Many patients do need to wear them, but not all, and only your ortho will know for sure whether this is in your treatment plan.

Great you're going to be keeping a blog and good luck with seeing progress and keeping your oral hygiene A1!

I haven't heard of "Speed Braces". Is it possible your ortho is calling damon braces.. speed braces?

Either way, welcome to the forum and we look forward to reading your blog.

Speed braces are a type of self ligating brackets, just as damon is a type of self ligating brackets, and there are many more brands of self ligating also. Here's the speed braces website.

I think advertisers do sometimes get this information wrong in their hard sell, but hopefully our ortho's are professional enough to know the difference and know that it's their skill and the archwires that move our teeth ... not the brackets or the advertising!

I took civil engineering and had many classes on static forces (which is pretty much what braces are). Basically what I can tell you is that these braces look JUST like the damon system in that the wire does all the work. All they did was increase friction losses by making the inside movable. Their website has a lot of fancy graphics and a lot of BS. Basically, it's just someone else trying to cash in on the same idea.

Having said all that, it looks like they're still a great system. I'd say their marketing team needs to stop lying about "speed" braces though. They'd be just as fast as any self-ligating system. The speed merely refers to how fast they can get the wire in and out at adjustments.

Of course, I'm not an ortho and I could be wrong.

I agree with much of what you write HeadJam ... important to remember that the same applies to the damon website as the speed braces website. Advertising a product they way these sites do, is a questionable practise. What I question, is why they need to make the statements they do. A good product should sell without this type of excess used on these websites.

With regard to the speed of getting the wire in and out of brackets at adjustments. When done by an experienced person, it is no faster for self-ligating or O rings, as there are tools that do the jobs quickly and efficiently.

Welcome to the site, Lovinglife! If you have quesitons about if you need to wear rubber bands and stuff like that, you could just call your orthodointist or ask at your next appoinment. I know what it feels like to forget to ask questions. It seems that when your there all the important, simple questions slip your mind and I usually end up calling the next day.
When I first got my braces put on I didn't eat anything like meat for a the first week too. So I understand it was the best feeling when the pain was gone and you started seeing progress. I look foward to your next blog!!!!