A cool thing about the Damon bracket is the sliding door.

Go here to read a description on the Damon site about how self-ligating technology works. There’s a graphic that shows how the sliding door opens and closes, and a photo where you can see how traditional all-metal brackets compare to Damon 3 brackets that are part ceramic (clear-looking) and part metal. These are the brackets I have on my upper teeth.

My experience with the sliding doors:

  • When closing the doors:
    • Much faster and less painful than the old-fashioned tie, twist and tighten method that I experienced as a kid.
    • It’s kind of fun when they snap the doors closed.
  • A couple of times, the doors didn’t close all the way. If this happens, you can push them closed yourself.
    • The first time, the inside of my mouth was irritated, and I couldn’t figure out why. I looked closely at the brackets and saw that one was open, and the open door was wreaking havoc. I just used my finger and pushed up on the door. That was early on when the archwire was thinner so closing was easy.
    • The second time, the archwire–my current one–is much thicker, and one of the doors didn’t close all the way. I couldn’t push it up easily, so I used the side of my toothbrush and pushed it up.
  • The bad news: opening them can be tough and painful!
    • They use a blunt tool that pushes the doors down, which means it pushes down on the teeth. Ow! Fortunately, it only hurts when they are opening the door.
    • I dread this step, so I try to remember to breathe deeply and slowly during this. (Hopefully this is not a universal experience.)