Back in my headgear days (i.e. the stone ages) my ortho told me that the more I wore my headgear, the better. But, except for wearing it in order to catch up a couple of times before ortho appointments, I never wore it to school, and although I was not the only headgear user in my class - some even wore it to school daily for months in a row - I felt embarrassed when I did.

But, speaking to an old clas mate the other day, it struck me as quite incoherent that, on the one hand, I was told to wear it 12-14 hours a day, whereas, on the other hand, the more I wore it, the better it would be. Why, in order to deal with the embarrassment I (and probably also other headgear users) felt wearing it in public, did the ortho not prescribe it for full time wear? As I know most bracefaces in my class did wear headgear for some time, whether they wore it to school occasionaly or at home only, that would, given, of course that we really did wear it as prescribed, most certainly reduce the degree of embarrassment for all of us wearing it. And it would improve the treatment. I do not, of course, suggest prescribing headgear to kids not in need of it, or prescribing full time wear when it would be a disadvantage. But for those of us who were told that the more we wore it, the better - and I believe most of us were told that - it would definitely feel better wearing it to school if we were 7 or 8 kids in class wearing headgear at the same time than none more than 3, most of the time only one.

There were, by the way, two orthos in my hometown, and the one I saw, I believe, prescribed fewer hours than the other one (I actually believe I was the only one seeing him that ever wore headgear to school, and, as mentioned, it only happened a couple of times), but that could easily be resolved by them making a deal.

So, what do you think, would it have been a good idea?

Your ortho was probably prescribing less hours so that you would be more likely to comply.

If you had to wear it say, 20 hours/day, you may only get 12-14 if you don't want to wear it to school or around friends. So then the ortho wouldn't have accurate numbers to work with.

While archie´s argument is valid from a purely rational point of view, experience and science show that real life decisions do not work on a purely rational base for the majority of people.

People do know that smoking, overeating, lack of activity are harmful - still, people do not stop smoking, eat healthy nor do sports.

Combine that with the emotional and rational challenges in teens and the full time wear model comes crashing down.

When I was in high school back 70’s there was 2 girls that wore their headgears in school. When I had braces as an adult I wore my headgear all the time and actually enjoyed it.