Please tell me I can talk normal

[Babyrae84]

I got braces on 3 days ago. Upper lingual braces and lower ceramic. Since I have lingual on the top it is harder to talk. I'm doing ok so far but have a lisp. Does this get better? Will I ever be able to talk and sound normal for the next 18 months? Since they are so new it's very hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel!!! Any help would be great..

[Sunny]

Welcome to this forum Babyrae84.

I don't have linguals, but I work with patients who do. Most report that it takes a few weeks for speech to return to the way it was prior to getting these brackets put in place.

Here's a passage to help your tongue get used to having a smaller area to work in ...
This is a great tool used by many speech pathologists. It contains most of the sounds and phonetic combinations in the English language. Repeat this several times a day out loud. It’s great practice for getting your tongue used to talking around foreign appliances.

The Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act like a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colours. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Practise talking and singing out loud, also reading out loud will help. With any bracket type, there is always a period of adjustment ... and there's definitely a light at the end of the tunnel!

Take good care of your mouth!

[SouthernGirl]

I feel for you. I have expanders right now on top and bottom (with braces) and I had very similiar talking troubles.

I have been understandable when talking since maybe a week after I got the expander.
You may still talk with a lisp but be understandable when talking.
Hang in there!

[mariahfromchicago]

Hi Babyrae. I don't have linguals, but my friend does. I don't know how long she has had them (I haven't seen her in a long time). She spoke normally. Those first few months do seem like years.
Here is a passage that might help (I used it to learn an accent)

"I doubt the trout was out and about so I went to my house like a little boy scout I saw a mouse that ran from a louse so I started to pout and took a different route. So I sat on the couch and started to shout"

That passage was used in: Canadian Accents (Ottawa) and Matt's New England Accent. Both are youtube videos.