Daylia, The appliance you had with the prongs should never be sharpened but rounded and blunted to prevent injury. The problem it was trying to solve was the flexing of the MENTALIS muscle thus the name mental habit. The mentalis habit flexes the lower lip and actually moves the lower fron teeth back at an incorrect angle.

You altering the appliance was certainly not in your best interest as it was then not functioning properly and would not do what it was intended to do. Normally a few weeks in this can stop the problem.

Anyway, I hope you can overcome your dental issues and get some satisfactory results. I pretty much specialise in working with dental phobics, people who have severe issues related to their dentistry and they are suffering as a result of thier own neglact. The first issue I always try to overcome is to get the patient to believe in me that I will do everything humanly possible to be their partner in solving their dental problems. The second thing is getting the patient to accept that these problems are theirs and not someone elses and that finger pointing at some abuse real or imagined from past dentistry is not going to be in thier best interest.

I think you still seem to be hung up on what has happened to you in past years and cannot see that there were benefits as well as discomfort in your treatment.