Volare's Story - 10 months lingual iBraces:New Wire/elastics

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#1 Post by **Volare** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 12:52 pm

I decided at the age of 34 to get braces. This was to correct the following:

Mildly long facial growth pattern
Moderately convex profile
Mildly short upper jaw
Mildly short lower jaw
Mild upper jaw constriction
Overjet 3mm Overbite 2mm
Mild upper arch crowding
Mild lower arch crowding
Lower dental midline to the right of facial midline by 2mm

I decided to get lingual braces (iBraces) top and bottom. Although my top teeth look fine, I detest the horrid overlap in my bottom front teeth, so I usually don't smile very big so as to hide my bottom teeth. The estimated treatment time is 24-30 months. Here is a photo I took at the beginning of my treatment:

Jan 29, 2008

I realize that these photos aren't terribly exciting due to the lingual braces and the lack of pretty and varied colors!

6 weeks later, I got the lower brackets and wire installed. By then, my teeth looked like this:

March 11, 2008

Now I am 5 months into treatment. I went in today and had some repairs done (two brackets off) and had the lower wire reinstalled (had to take it off myself due to being out of town when the brakets came off.) Today they also installed my third (and final!) top wire. I was somewhat surprised that I only have 3 wires for the top, but I guess the top wasn't horrible to begin with. I have been somewhat appaled at the shifting that has occured on my top two front teeth. Before we started this, they were pretty straight and aligned, but now they're worse than before! Someone tell me this is normal. Anyway, the bottom teeth are moving quite slowly, not to mention they are running into each other a lot in the effort to get out of the way, so I'm sure the majority of the treatment time will be dedicated to fixing that mess.

So here is today:

July 7, 2008

Frankly I don't see a whole heck of a lot of difference (other than my two front teeth which are now crooked!) but I know it is sometimes easier for others to look and see improvements. So if you see anything good let me know!

Oh, I also figured out a better way to take these photos. Before I was just blindly firing the camera at my face and hoping they came out ok. But today I figured that if I stand in front of a mirror, I can see the screen on the back of the camera in order to aim it better. This allowed me to get some decent photos of my top and bottom arches:

Top 7/7/08

Bottom 7/7/08

I wish I had some of these from the start but I couldn't get them to come out. Oh well! Look at the fancy battleship grey ligs? Aren't you all jealous with your fancy pinks and blues?

And yes, the midline is appalling... they said they won't start to fix that until the teeth are pretty straight. More updates to come as time rolls on...

#2 Post by **AngelRuse** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 5:22 pm

LOL. I did the same thing with my camera, eyeballing the screen in the mirror.

Handy dandy newfangled technology.

Interesting braces, the lingual. I honestly didn't even know they existed until I came to this board. Lucky you could get them. If you don't mind my asking, are they a higher cost than traditional braces? I assume they must be...getting them on might be more work for the ortho, huh?

Teeth look they're coming along nicely though. I myself have an off midline, so I know how that feels.

Congrats on taking the plunge! Here's to the final results!

#3 Post by **Volare** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 9:02 pm

Oh yeah, they cost more than traditional braces. About double if you talking metal brackets, and about 30% more than ceramic or clear brackets. I don't think they are any more work for the ortho, in fact, since they can out them all one at once with the tray, it might be less. The cost is in the fact that the brackets are all custom made by computer, along with the wires. So the iBrace people are doing custom work and I'm sure they charge a lot for all these custom brackets versus the mass produced typical brackets.

#4 Post by **Volare** » Tue Aug 26, 2008 10:35 pm

Well, I had a regular 6 week interval appointment on 8/18. This was the first time I had gone the full 6 weeks without having to return for popped brackets or any other problem. First thing the tech did was pull off my lower wire and then try to put it back on while engaging the front brackets fully. This immediately resulted in front tiny bracket snapping off! To review I had a tiny bracket on one of my front teeth because at the start of treatment this tooth was covered up by the adjacent teeth by about 1/4 tooth width on each side. So while most of the other brackets cover almost the entire back of the tooth, this one is not even half of the tooth. So we then spent the next 2 hours trying to get the bracket rebonded. Since the gums are very small next to this tooth, they bleed easily, which means the bonding doesn't work. After 3 tries, the Dr. decided to give up on the bracket and put a coil on there to try and increase the space around that tooth even more. This coil method has been used once before when the bracket wouldn't stay in place. The coil started doing it's work immediately. By the next day I was able to finally see daylight between one of the adjacent teeth. This is the 1st time I've seen space next to this crazy tooth, so I'm pretty happy. I go in next week for another attempt at getting this bracket installed. I really think they need to get a new bracket made that is the full width of the tooth, or this is always going to be a problem. This tiny bracket just doesn't have enough surface area for effective bonding. This photo shows the bottom arch as well as Mr. Coil...

#5 Post by **jenny101101** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 4:57 am

Hi Volare,

Great journal so far. I think your teeth are coming along nicely!

Like AngelRuse I hadn't heard of linguals either until joining this board. I don't think there are any ortho's in my area that even DO them

.

About your upper centrals overlapping, I'm in the same boat. I have quite a few progress pics in my story if you'd like to see how mine are now overlapping and weren't in the beginning(just click on the WWW at the bottom of my post to get there). I find it quite frustrating but I'm trying not to get too freaked out about it. My ortho says he'll get them all straight so I'll just have to be patient.

I look forward to following your story!

#6 Post by **real2** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 1:57 pm

I must admit, I don't see a heck of alot of difference in your upper pic comparisons. Though I don't have a trained eye for this either.

I have seen though, regular braces shift their patients teeth quite vigorously, aligning that C-shape quite quickly with incisors and canines.

But then again, I'm sure most people would prefer discreet braces over "in-ur-face" metal brackets/wire.

#7 Post by **Volare** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 9:16 pm

Hurray! Mr. Coil did his job, and I went in 5 days ago to attempt the get the front bracket re-installed. The coil had opened a nice space between the front teeth and the bracket went on just fine. The wire started doing it's magic right away, and closed the gap up. I finally have some serious movement going on!!! No more overlap on the bottom arch!

Unfortuantely, the vertical alignment is still horrendous, but that will be corrected in time... (no, that's not a smile, I'm just trying to show my teeth)

Next appointment about 5 weeks from now should see a new wire going on the bottom (#2). About time!

#8 Post by **lauren** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 9:48 pm

Lovely! I was going to get lingual tops but didn't want to spend the extra $2k just for the top row. So I'm getting ceramics in about a week. Super nervous! Your pics make me sad that I'm not getting the lingual - you cant tell at all! I love them! How's the tongue feel? How's speaking?

#9 Post by **Volare** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 10:46 pm

Tongue is fine, so is speaking. Takes a little while to adjust, but I imagine regular braces do too. Gotta keep well hydrated. I look forward to things starting to level out a bit!

#10 Post by **KARESS** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 3:02 pm

i dont see a difference.

#11 Post by **Memran** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 3:29 pm

You don't?

Hmm well I do! look at the pics in the first post, and look at the top arch on our left. Notice how much straighter that #4 is. There is a noticable change on the bottom too. 1,2,3 on the left are more in line.

Perhaps the changes are not as dramatic as have been seen for other people, but everyone is different. Progress is progress

#12 Post by **lionfish** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 3:30 pm

i dont see a difference.

Have another look.

#13 Post by **Volare** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 4:04 pm

Mmmm. Ok. Maybe 2 pics side by side will help. These are 2 months apart. The biggest change is right in the front...

#14 Post by **iamtheotherme** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 6:01 am

I definitely see a difference. When I was considering linguals vs. ceramics, one of the pros for linguals was seeing your smile shape up "magically," where you don't see the braces but teeth are moving into place. That must be so cool for you. Keep up the great work.

#15 Post by **Volare** » Wed Oct 15, 2008 2:05 pm

Went in yesterday for a 6 week appointment. I had survived the time between appointments without breaking anything off! Dr. asked how it had been going, and I pointed out again that the top front teeth that had become misaligned early on in treatment were not getting any better. These photo shows the problem:

As you can see from this photo taken at the beginning of treatment, the two front teeth while not perfect were pretty well aligned at their endpoints:

He took a look at the wire and said that it was still bent and doing some work, but that it needed more help, so the tech double banded that tooth. You can see that in this photo:

You can also tell which bands she changed- apparently these grey bands they use for ibraces stain too- not like it really matters.

Bottom arch continues to improve. These photos are 3 months apart:

Alas, one look at my smile shows we still have a ways to go: