Yes. Absolutely yes. But let me give you the full picture, because it's complicated, it took nearly three years, and there are things I wish I'd known before I started.

I got braces at 30. I had them for 28 months. Then came the retainers, the extractions, the denture disaster, the bridges, the whitening. First consultation October 2015, braces fitted March 2016, whole thing completed November 2018 - over three years from start to finish.

By the end I had six false teeth across the front of my mouth and had spent more than I'd budgeted for, largely because I ditched the NHS route partway through and went private for a better result.

Was it worth it? Every single penny. But I also wish I'd done it ten years earlier.

What my teeth were actually like before braces

I had no lateral incisors - the teeth either side of your two front teeth. Three teeth that simply never developed, no adult teeth ever formed in the gum. What I had instead was a peg tooth on one side and my adult canine sitting right next to my front tooth on the other, completely twisted so it looked like a fang. My baby canines were still in place too. It was a mess.

I'd been called a witch and a vampire. Even as an adult. I know I shouldn't have let those comments cut deep, but when you're already embarrassed about something every single day, hearing it from someone else just confirms what you already feel about yourself.

I never smiled showing my teeth. Not even in my own wedding photos - we specifically chose a lifestyle photographer who took natural candid shots because I couldn't bear posing and being asked to smile. I snatched Ben's phone and deleted photos of myself. I have barely any photos of me with my children from their early years because I always avoided the camera. That one still stings.

Why I waited until my 30s and whether that was the right call

The honest answer is that I wish I hadn't waited - but I also understand exactly why I did.

I didn't even know I had baby teeth still in my mouth until I was around 16. At that point a dentist offered me braces and said the baby teeth would need to come out. I said no. The dentist's response was to ask if I was too vain for braces. It was the opposite.

I had so little confidence in my looks that the thought of going to sixth form and then university with a mouth full of metal and gaps at the front where teeth had been removed terrified me more than my bad teeth did. At least my bad teeth were familiar. Braces and gaps felt like announcing my insecurity to everyone.

So I waited. And waited. And got to 30 and decided I couldn't spend another decade feeling this way.

If I could go back I'd tell my 16-year-old self to just do it. Better still, I wish it had been picked up at 12 or 13 when braces were actually cool - everyone wanted them, coloured elastics were basically an accessory, and nobody thought twice about wearing them.

It would likely have been free on the NHS at that age, and these problems are genuinely easier to treat in a teenager than an adult - the teeth move faster, the body heals faster. The results might not have been as refined as going private in your thirties, but the outcome would have been similar and I'd have had my confidence years earlier.

But I understand why that felt impossible at the time. The dentist who implied I was being vain clearly didn't understand that the problem wasn't vanity - it was the complete lack of it.

If you're in your twenties reading this and wondering whether to go ahead, the answer is yes, do it now, don't wait until you're thirty.

It was a long, long time with braces, and so many appointments...

The cost - and why I ended up going private

The braces themselves were around £2,800 for both sets of teeth. That was the orthodontist fee. What I didn't fully account for at the start was the cosmetic dentistry on top.

The original plan was a veneer over the peg tooth and a bridge for the other side - around £800-£1,000 total. Then the peg tooth had internal resorption and had to come out. Then the NHS denture I was given looked so awful I couldn't bear it - tiny teeth that looked exactly like the baby teeth I'd had removed two years earlier. I ended up going to a private cosmetic dentist for the bridges and paid £3,135 for two traditional fixed bridges covering six teeth in total, including whitening thrown in as a goodwill gesture.

So the total was well over £6,000 by the end. I don't regret a penny of the private dental work. The NHS route would have saved money but I would have hated the result. For something this visible, on the front of your face, for potentially the next twenty years - it had to be right.

If you're budgeting for adult braces and you'll need cosmetic work afterwards, build in more than you think. Go private if you can. The difference in quality and care is significant.

What the bridge process actually involved

Just so you know what you might be signing up for - getting two fixed bridges was not a quick or easy process...

Eight dentist appointments over a couple of months. Ten injections in the first sitting to numb the whole top half of my mouth. Almost two hours of my four front and canine teeth being filed down to tiny pegs. Swollen bruised lips for days afterwards, then a week of ulcerated gums, then doing it all over again at the next appointment when the first temporary bridge had to be hacked off and redone!

My cosmetic dentist was worth every penny though. He spent time reshaping until I was happy, did cosmetic bonding to cover gaps I wasn't expecting, and genuinely cared about the result. That's what going private got me.

Before, during, and after my adult braces experience.

The things that went wrong along the way

Because there were quite a few, and I think it's only fair to be honest about this:

The peg tooth had to be extracted instead of being saved with a veneer - it had internal resorption from all the movement during treatment and was too wobbly to keep.

My centre line ended up very slightly off centre because the elastics had pulled my teeth too far to one side and we couldn't fully correct it without risking other teeth twisting again.

There were black triangles at the bottom of my front teeth from uneven wear - gaps I thought were going to be closed.

And the whole thing took four months longer than originally estimated.

None of these things matter now. But in the middle of it all they felt like setbacks every time.

Before, during, and after my adult braces experience.

Would I do it again?

Yes. Without any hesitation.

I can smile in photos now. I have photos of me and my kids. I can talk to people without thinking about my teeth. I don't snatch Ben's phone and delete pictures of myself. That's what this was all about and it delivered completely.

The thing I feel most is that I should have done it sooner. If you're a teenager or in your twenties and the only thing stopping you is the fear of how you'll look during treatment - I promise the temporary embarrassment of braces is nothing compared to years of hiding your smile. The best time was back then. The second best time is now.

Are braces worth it at 30?

The short version: yes, braces are worth it at 30. Yes, go private if you can afford it. And yes, you should have done it sooner!

 

Where to start

If you're considering braces or cosmetic dentistry and don't know where to begin, a consultation is the obvious first step. Some practices offer a free dental consultation which is worth using just to understand what's possible and what it might cost before you commit to anything. My consultation was around £100 and they took it off the final bill, so it's worth asking whether that's the case wherever you go.

If you want to see the full picture month by month, I've put together my adult braces progress with photos from start to finish which shows the timeline in full.

For the more personal side of the story, my adult braces diary with photos is over on Healthy Vix.

I've also written about what happens at a braces tightening appointment, my experience with peg lateral teeth and tooth extraction, and a full Hawley vs Essix retainer comparison if any of those are relevant to where you are in your own journey.