Metal Mouth Message Board

So... long term follow up, as I haven't been around for very long... Braces came off (for the second time) last week. I'm pretty happy with the result. I have a slight midline shift, but that was expected when trying to close the unilateral gap of a needless premolar extraction. The second ortho did...

You're in the same bandwagon as me: deep bite, some upper crowding in my case, and no aesthetic concern whatsoever. In my case, unfortunately, I ended up getting myself into a nightmare with an idiot who was not only incompetent at orthodontics, but probably even worse, at listening. After wrongful ...

New update: the molars began to be pulled forward and it was pretty fast to substantially narrow the gap left by pulling the premolar foward. I always read that molars are hard to move but that's luckily not what I've been experiencing.

New update: in less than 2 months the extraction gap has closed about halfway or more! Of course this has created a second gap behind the 2nd premolar, but that was expected since the ortho is pulling the teeth forward one at a time, to minimize retraction of front teeth. If no roots are being lost ...

Sorry, haven't been around. @melere, k known how teeth feel she they move, but I felt nothing on this one. It turns out the force was not enough. She then added an open coil spring to the archwire between premolar and first molar, in addition to the elastic between canine and premolar. Now, in about...

Thanks a lot for the update. In my case I have to move the back 3 teeth to partly fill in for the missing 1st pré-molar, the rest will be filled from retraction of the front teeth... Not ideal as it will cause asymmetry, but don't care. The ortho's idea is to try to pull the premolar first so that t...

Thanks for your replies! Assertives, was this done using TADs? Maybe the forces being used on me are insufficient? If there are no signs of this one tooth moving then either something is wrong or a different strategy is needed... But I will definitely talk to her about lower braces, although I reall...

Hey guys, long time since I last posted... I'm now 6 months or so into my second round of braces and things have been cool with my new ortho (well, after we had a small fight right after I got the braces on, because she was also going to level my front teeth by their tips, giving me an old man's smi...

Be really sure you want to do the extractions! There are other ways to solve crowding, class II etc that do not the require the permanent loss of teeth or other facial/smile changes that you may not like. And it's really hard to deal with extraction regret, believe me!

Even though I stopped my "treatment" halfway, I know about extraction regret, as I stopped too late and had already pointlessly lost one premolar. Beware though that thinning of the face is normal with braces as we can't chew properly and lose muscle mass. The other issues aren't though, a...

bite planes are stupid and rather inefficient in my own personal experience. Reverse curve archwires and/or TADs to intrude lower incisors is probably your best bet and they won't mess with your TMJ, which is what's causing your symptoms and can become permanent...

Your bite discrepancy is rather small. Unilateral Class III elastics should handle that easily in a few months

Some relapse is expected, unless you ask to remove the braces AND get retainers. If used as instructed, retainers should prevent the teeth from shifting. I ended my treatment midway due to irreconcilable differences with my ortho, who was an idiot and left me way worse than I began. My teeth relapse...

Early, large movements require weak constant forces. Maybe you're still in that phase where a thicker wire could place too much stress on the teeth? It really depends on your case and how much it the teeth need to move, etc...

Having been a victim of extractions (well, one as I realized it was a mistake halfway in) I totally agree with Gia; don't get teeth extracted and see how it goes. You can always decide for extractions later if it's really the only way, but you can't undo them if it turns out they were not necessary....