Starting on the long road...

[melodybrick]

Hello, I'm the new girl with the funny teeth.

Why am I getting braces? Well, first I'd be lying if I said I wasn't self-conscious about my teeth. But it's not just cosmetic, flossing is ineffective or difficult between certain teeth. My new Waterpik has helped a lot and it's a great device but I'd rather not *need* it every time. Also my bite is off, chewing with certain teeth is quite difficult. I've realized if I don't do something now, I will probably lose teeth prematurely.

I have a variety of ortho-issues, including crowding and a bit of an open bite on one side. The big one that's being dealt with right now is a cross-bite and extremely narrow upper jaw - it mostly bites inside of the lower jaw's bite. They're doing an expander followed by braces. If the expander is successful, they may only have to extract one tooth rather than the four I've been told about before. I already had all four partially-impacted wisdom teeth taken out, and I told them upfront that one of my goals is to avoid or minimize additional extractions.

For the jaw issue, I have a 'skeletal' problem where one side of my mouth is smaller than the other. The issue does not seem to be ongoing but it means one side is considerably more crowded than the other - on my lower jaw teeth 27 is almost fully in front of 26. Crowding is heavy on the top right but not to such an extent. The tooth shape themselves is pretty 'straight' so I'm told IPR won't help much with it.

I was a candidate for surgery and I know it provides 'the best' results but I simply could not afford it. I'm currently just at the stage of getting an expander in. I realize this is somewhat controversial at my age (28) as there's a good chance that I'll just get tipping instead of actual expansion. My orthodontist said it was about a 50/50 chance based on his own experience. But with a decent chance of success, and knowing I'll need a retainer anyway when I do get and finish the braces, I'm going ahead with it. I'm going to a dental school so it's all a flat rate whether I get the expander or not. They've put in four TADs (miniscrews) and I'll get the expander put in once they it get back from the lab in a few weeks. The four screws, not hooking it up to any bands on teeth, may help prevent tipping as this expander will not apply any direct pressure to any teeth. They're looking for about 5mm in expansion.

Right now I'm still getting used to the screws. They numbed me up a bit for insertion and that went quite smoothly but it was sure uncomfortable when it wore off.

Progress will be slow but I will try to update as possible. Once the expander is in they're going to have me come in every week to inspect progress. From what I understand, it will be a turn every two days. If/when the suture splits (should know about a month after the expander is in place) I may start doing turns every day. If not, we just move on to braces with probably more extractions.

To those who would argue that I won't get good results from an expander as an adult - if you had a failure or side effects with it I certainly don't mind you sharing your story but please don't just post saying it won't work. This is a positive-thinking zone. I've made my decision - I've given it years of negative input which made me put off working on my teeth at all, and I'm ending that train of thought now. If it doesn't work, it's a lot of pain for nothing but I want to feel free to share my personal outcome either way. Being able to say "I told you so" isn't going to get you very far.

The braces themselves, they're talking about putting on self ligating braces. They're estimating total treatment time is 30 months, they've been moving forward with a lot of caution so it's possible it will be longer.

Thanks for reading this long, rambly start. I'm sure I've still forgotten important parts but even though I'm not yet 'braced' I felt I should start putting down my story, even just for my own reference. Ask questions, or if any of this sounds familiar tell me how long it took you to get over the discomfort from the TADs or just general tips or things I should ask my orthodontist.

[NeilH]

Hello and welcome to the forum. I like your idea about a 'positive thinking zone' and have found this a great way to go about orthodontic treatment. It sounds as though you have considered all the options and will entering the process in a great state of mind which I know is half the battle. Good luck with your next stage, you will soon develop a network of people on this site who will support and encourage where required and just be around to share experiences as your own treatment progresses. I look forward to following your progress.

[SunshineRay]

Hi and welcome! I get TAD's in next week so its nice to know its not that bad. You can read my story (link below) and one ortho suggested surgery and it was just out of the question in my mind. So I dont blame you!

[melodybrick]

I am back, with kinda a crazy week.

My TADs went well, learned to chew even with screws on the top of my mouth and they seem to be stable.

I went in to get my RPE (palatal expander). They warned me that the most difficult part of the day would be explaining and getting me to be able to turn my own expander. Fun! But wow, the expander was smaller than I imagined - I should've taken a picture of it before it went in but it didn't look that scary. A bit tall but I think I do have a bit of a high arch.

They did decide to throw a monkeywrench in there: the expander came with removable 'wings' or sides that they generally use to just guide it into place, they decided to keep them on for stability. The wings come into my bite, so they had to put two speed bumps in... They are little blue bumps that keep my teeth from connecting except at the site of the speed bumps - for me, on my lower premolars.

So, I walked out with a lisp, extra wings that I am finding ways to cut my tongue on, and speed bumps that make eating just dandy as long as I don't have to use my teeth. The speed bumps both came off (one Wednesday morning... they squeezed me in and got it replaced... another Wednesday night... squeezed me in Thursday with orders not to come back if one falls out again .) The two speed bumps apparently stay on until my crossbite is fixed. Not sure how common they are, I certainly wouldn't claim to be any sort of an expert but I sure didn't expect them.

But they have me turning the expander once a day, so I'm excited to finally get some progress. I go in again Tuesday for a general check to make sure it's all getting turned properly. I feel positive because they said they didn't have a lot of difficulty putting in the screws, there seemed to be no bad reactions, they said there was no blood on insertion and it seems to be healthy so far. So I'm hopeful my palatte is still 'softer' or at least soft enough for this. I feel the pressure from the expander for a few minutes but it's not painful.

Oh, and they said each turn of the expander is about a quarter of a millimeter. The technical stuff is always interesting to hear about!

So for now I'm learning to eat with speed bumps and how to talk without sounding like I need speech therapy. I'm told I'm getting better everyday but to me it still sounds like I slur every word I come across. Keep in mind my vocabulary was quite limited when I first got the expander in!

[SunshineRay]

I feel like the TAD's and powerchain make me talk funny. My husband says they dont but I dont really believe him. lol

[melodybrick]

Wow, just when I thought I had a crazy enough time. First I'll just touch on how I'm doing, then just document my my many, many visits.

I think I've mostly adapted to talking with the expander. I'll still have some issues - if food gets stuck up there, I have to clean it out or I might sound like the first few days again. Like you, Sunshine, I still feel funny talking, but I'm mostly getting over it as it seems to be mostly just being self-conscious now.

I also basically waterpick immediately after every meal. I've been told to do the warm salt water rinses to keep on top of the inflammation so I'm going to double down on that again.

Now, the details! On the week of the 15th, one speedbump fell out. They got me in quickly, replaced it. The other fell out that night, had to get that replaced the next day!

The next week, I had trouble with one of the wings. It wasn't glued on anymore so they had to remove it on one side. A few days later I went back in with severe pain in that area when eating/brushing - one of the wires was pinching my gum. So they drilled them down and removed the last tooth band I had in place.

This week... I've been hoping for improvements or noticable changes in my bite. No longer having the sharp pains but still some inflammation. And I lost the glue on one of the screws! The student looked it over and even the other orthodontist suggested not doing any more turns until the orthodontist can look at it again.

In good news, they do think there's been some movement of the suture. They see movement in the premolars but seemingly no movement in the front and the molars are still in crossbite. I really haven't been able to see much at all but I found that encouraging.

[melodybrick]

A mini-update. One of the tads is no longer attached to the expander, and I had some pain from my expander squeezing the gum against my teeth. But a week of letting it sit still seems to have greatly helped the swelling and they decided to have me keep turning for now. They took another cone beam x-ray to look for movement of the suture - they didn't see any. They did measure about 2mm of expansion in my molars and premolars. They believe it's not dental tipping at this time but I go back in in two weeks for another checkup.

In other news, I'm learning just how easy it can be to turn your own expander. Getting used to it is difficult but now I did it pretty quickly today.

[ScottCDT]

Hi, my son went through the tongue pain of an RPE. If you are going through this, or are starting you RPE and don't want you tongue to have indented sores, I would suggest the "RPE Tongue Guard" on Amazon.com. I gives instant relief and keeps your tongue off the metal. Hope this helps someone.