Another appliance used before you get braces is the bite plane. A bite plane is a retainer-like piece fitted to the shape of your top jaw that prevents your bottom teeth from hitting the roof of your mouth (used in extreme overbite situations usually). There are small metal pieces molded into it that slide onto two of your front teeth, used to hold it up. Because these metal holder uppers are the only things showing, the bite plane is not visible to other people. Eventually as your mouth grows to accommodate this device, your back teeth will touch while your bottom teeth will not hit the roof of your mouth. In other words, your jaw will line up properly.
Here are some tips for this new piece of plastic:
1. Do not eat with it in.
2. Brush your bite plane a lot. For cleaning techniques see our previous post called "All About Retainers", for cleaning your bite plane is exactly the same as cleaning your retainer.
3. Keep it in a safe place when you take it out. Bite planes break extremely easily.
4. Do not play with your bite plane in your mouth. Besides being kind of weird-looking to other people, you can accidentally break off the little metal pieces that hold it up (which are not replaceable unless you get a whole new bite plane!). And you can break off chunks of the plastic part too. Trust us it happens.
To emphasize Tip #4 here is a little story. When I, Amanda, got my bite plane, I used to play with it in my mouth a lot. One day I was talking to my friend and as I went to answer her question, I accidentally spit out my bite plane since I'd been playing with it. It was embarrassing and plus it fell on the ground so I couldn’t put it back in. Moral of this story: DON'T PLAY WITH IT!
-Erik and Amanda
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