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Photos
of Katrin in Germany
 Katrin
is a 27-year-old mother of two. This is her second orthodontic
treatment. She says, "I was 11 years old when my first
treatment started. I had crowded teeth and a very noticeable
overbite. My lisp was also very bad." Katrin
needed almost 5 years of treatment, involving different
removable appliances to correct her bite and her lisp.
At age 18, Katrin had her
wisdom teeth extracted. Then at age 19, she visited her Ortho
again, because she thought her teeth were moving. He said she
should have come in one year earlier, because now she needed
full treatment. Katrin didn't want to be in braces for a long
time, so she didn't do anything at that point.
Katrin says, "Recently,
my 4-year-old son started speech therapy because of his lisp.
At this point, my husband asked me if it is possible that my
lisp was getting worse. He was right; it was! Then we looked
at some pictures from the past 8-10 years, and you could see
that my teeth had slowly moved. (It seems I have a tongue
thrust habit that must be corrected.)
"In November, 2003 I
visited another Ortho and asked him for a treatment plan. He
said that it would cost between 3000 and 3500 Euro.
He wants to correct the open
bite and the crooked teeth on bottom. To correct the tongue
habit he would use some kind of little spikes.
"I don't want my teeth
to move again after this treatment, so I asked him how he
would ensure this.
"He suggested:
-
Possible
extraction of two teeth in the upper jaw
-
Brackets
on both upper and lower jaw
-
High-pull
headgear for several months
-
Spikes
on top and bottom for my tongue habit
-
Retainers
for several years, maybe forever…
"Some of this sounds
very strange to me… I don’t know if it was the right
decision. I hope it was!
"My
treatment starts in late January. Impressions and x-rays were
made in December. I plan to send more pictures with braces
soon."
Katrin's
open bite before treatment began, December 2003. 
Katrin
got headgear in March. As you can see, she doesn't have
brackets on all her teeth yet. Her orthodontist wants to move
her jaw in a specific way to open up some space, first.
Eventually she may have jaw surgery. 
Katrin
says, "Time to move my teeth! I got my mouth full of
brackets last week. Horrible!! The pain in the first two days
was heavy. Now I think I can handle it.
"I got brackets top and
bottom. The wire is a kind of "thermal reacting
wire". I also got a new facebow for my headgear. The good
thing is: I didn't have to wear the high-pull strap any
longer. The bad thing is: Now I have to wear the new headgear
for a minimum of 22 hours a day. I hope I can do it for such a
long time a day.
"My ortho told me, that
the molars moves a little bit back, but they have to move 3-4
mm more. In a few weeks he'll install the spikes on the top
jaw. Because of this he changed the molar rings for the
headgear from the 6th to the 7th teeth."
(editor's note: Katrin, I
don't envy you, having to suffer with those corrective spikes.
I hope your tongue thrust/lisp problem clears up quickly so
they don't have to be on for too long!)
Recently, Katrin got her
first 2 elastics to move the lower jaw forward. Her ortho also
installed three new spacers to help turn the teeth
in the right position. |