Set back about lingual treatment

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chinglnc
Posts: 82
Joined: Sun May 21, 2017 9:35 am

Set back about lingual treatment

#1 Post by chinglnc »

I need some advice and wondering someone has gone through the similar experience:

1. Ortho 1:
Xrayed- the ortho checked my teeth and telling his assistant about what he found...his advice are:
1. No tooth extraction needed
2. Lingual treatment is fine (and he fact he feels lingual is one of the best treatment)
3. He has 10 years experience since the lingual training

2. Ortho 2:
Checked and feel my face/jaws & Checked my teeth (no xray), his advice are:
1. 4 tooth extraction (top 2, bottom 2)
2. Lingual treatment is not recommended as during the training the trainer told them that lingual result is similar invisialign (which is only suitable for mild cases)
3. More than 10 years experience with metal & ceramic braces

My gut feeling is Ortho 2 is more experience as he spent quite a long time feeling/checking my teeth AND my face BUT he doesn't recommend lingual braces at all. As much as I don't like the idea of extracting good healthy teeth, he said it's better for me to have teeth extracted otherwise the my mouth area will look like my teeth is too full to the front (overall sticking out is more).

What is your thoughts on this? I am really quite surprise to hear that his negative view with lingual treatment.

My teeth condition/problem is 'moderate' according to both orthos.


Any advice what I should do next? I wouldn't choose to do braces if I can't use lingual..I just can't bear the thought of them being visible, even with ceramic version.

Shelleyt
Posts: 129
Joined: Wed Aug 03, 2016 7:26 pm

Re: Set back about lingual treatment

#2 Post by Shelleyt »

If you are set on doing lingual, the absolute best option is to go with the ortho that has the most experience with lingual cases, not necessarily the most experience overall. It's a completely different treatment and someone who has loads of success as a traditional ortho may not be the best choice for a lingual case

Shelleyt
Posts: 129
Joined: Wed Aug 03, 2016 7:26 pm

Re: Set back about lingual treatment

#3 Post by Shelleyt »

Forgot to mention, look up to see if either (or both) are board certified.

SinkFullOfDinner
Posts: 273
Joined: Mon May 23, 2016 2:25 pm

Re: Set back about lingual treatment

#4 Post by SinkFullOfDinner »

Agree with Shelley.

btw, my "novice" alert was on high with Ortho 2 saying lingual and invisalign are only suitable for mild cases. Elite invisalign providers are not limited to mild cases once they get a lot of experience with the technique. Same for lingual approach. When he says "during the training the trainer told them..." that tells me he's relying on what he was told in a seminar instead of what he's actually experienced. Run away. Fast. Also, don't get mesmerized by the guy spending a lot of time feeling your face instead of doing actual x-rays and pano's. Unless he has x-ray fingers (which would be cool) or you just want a facial and mani, I doubt he can see what's going on with your roots, any impacted teeth, or bone loss, etc. Again, back away slowly. Just my opinion.

The question you should be asking is not how long they been a practicing ortho or since they did a lingual training, but rather how many lingual cases they've done, and how many they're currently doing. Example: one ortho included lingual as an adult option on his website. I asked how many lingual cases they had currently, and he didn't have any. Conclusion: he wanted to put all the high-tech stuff on his website, but it was just click bait. The next ortho advertised Incognito and was happy to do that - for $5k more. He had done three cases. Conclusion: I'd still be a guinea pig - and pay a lot for the privilege - but he's willing to stumble through the hassle if I'm willing to overpay. No thank you. When I called the next practice I just asked up front before scheduling anything how many lingual cases the ortho had done. Answer: a couple hundred. Bingo. Even with all that experience, the process has taken unpredictable twists and turns (I won't bore you), but I can't imagine how it would have gone if I was being treated by someone who was learning on the fly and didn't know what they didn't know.

chinglnc
Posts: 82
Joined: Sun May 21, 2017 9:35 am

Re: Set back about lingual treatment

#5 Post by chinglnc »

Shelleyt wrote:Forgot to mention, look up to see if either (or both) are board certified.
Thanks for your advice!!

What is the best way to check whether they are certified? both claims they have experience but how do I check for their qualifications?

chinglnc
Posts: 82
Joined: Sun May 21, 2017 9:35 am

Re: Set back about lingual treatment

#6 Post by chinglnc »

SinkFullOfDinner wrote:Agree with Shelley.

btw, my "novice" alert was on high with Ortho 2 saying lingual and invisalign are only suitable for mild cases. Elite invisalign providers are not limited to mild cases once they get a lot of experience with the technique. Same for lingual approach. When he says "during the training the trainer told them..." that tells me he's relying on what he was told in a seminar instead of what he's actually experienced. Run away. Fast. Also, don't get mesmerized by the guy spending a lot of time feeling your face instead of doing actual x-rays and pano's. Unless he has x-ray fingers (which would be cool) or you just want a facial and mani, I doubt he can see what's going on with your roots, any impacted teeth, or bone loss, etc. Again, back away slowly. Just my opinion.

The question you should be asking is not how long they been a practicing ortho or since they did a lingual training, but rather how many lingual cases they've done, and how many they're currently doing. Example: one ortho included lingual as an adult option on his website. I asked how many lingual cases they had currently, and he didn't have any. Conclusion: he wanted to put all the high-tech stuff on his website, but it was just click bait. The next ortho advertised Incognito and was happy to do that - for $5k more. He had done three cases. Conclusion: I'd still be a guinea pig - and pay a lot for the privilege - but he's willing to stumble through the hassle if I'm willing to overpay. No thank you. When I called the next practice I just asked up front before scheduling anything how many lingual cases the ortho had done. Answer: a couple hundred. Bingo. Even with all that experience, the process has taken unpredictable twists and turns (I won't bore you), but I can't imagine how it would have gone if I was being treated by someone who was learning on the fly and didn't know what they didn't know.
Thank you so much for your advice- it really helps. I wasn't clear in my previous post, the Ortho 2 has plan to do the Xrays etc if I do decide to go ahead with the treatment, it's simply wasn't part of the 'free consultation'. One reason I really liked the Ortho 2 as I felt he was genuinely tried to find the best solution for me, rather than 'selling' me their products and services.

I have crowded teeth, Ortho 2 pointed out that it would be difficult to fix my teeth without any extraction, my teeth might look 'straight' but it will also look even more 'poky' or 'mouth full'. He also showed me some pictures of his referred patients where their teeth got worse due to the poor advice from their previous ortho of doing braces without teeth extraction.

When I asked Ortho 1 whether I need any teeth extraction, he said 'no' as he thinks he can fix it by 'filing' the teeth (like filing our nails)- Has anyone heard of that before?

Anyway, I went back to get more information from Ortho 1 and asked them to review my consultation file. This is their reply, "xxx has treated approximately 200+ patients with the lingual brace in his career, he is a specialist in his field of work and lectures all around the world about braces and in particular the lingual brace. If you were to have brace treatment here, xxx advised that no teeth would need to be extracted in order to get your perfect smile. "

I don't think they reviewed my file but simply highlight what Ortho 1 advised during previous consultation. Do they sound credible?

chinglnc
Posts: 82
Joined: Sun May 21, 2017 9:35 am

Re: Set back about lingual treatment

#7 Post by chinglnc »

SinkFullOfDinner wrote:Agree with Shelley.

Even with all that experience, the process has taken unpredictable twists and turns (I won't bore you
You won't bore me at all! I want to be as prepared as possible!!!! what was your experience? Did the actual process turned up to be very different or unexpected?

SinkFullOfDinner
Posts: 273
Joined: Mon May 23, 2016 2:25 pm

Re: Set back about lingual treatment

#8 Post by SinkFullOfDinner »

What is the best way to check whether they are certified? both claims they have experience but how do I check for their qualifications?
If you're in the U.S., you can check at http://www.americanboardortho.com
You won't bore me at all! I want to be as prepared as possible!!!! what was your experience? Did the actual process turned up to be very different or unexpected?
Most of the process was as expected or better, though speech was a bigger issue for me than for shelleyt. It's just taken longer, and the big curveball was having to switch to regular (ceramic) braces for the finish. Does that qualify as an unexpected twist? It totally sucks after having the benefit of hidden ones, but maybe I'm just a big baby. I know that's sometimes required with Invisalign as well, but I still felt a bit unlucky. With Invisalign, the orthos can order new refinement trays when they need to adjust the plan, but I guess when you need to modify custom formed lingual archwires, there are some limits. My ortho is very experienced with linguals, so I think it's just been a case of how the treatment played out. Maybe his experience allowed him to anticipate sooner that the result was not going to be what he was looking for because he'd seen this situation before, while a different ortho who didn't recognize the signs would keep stumbling along and taking a lot longer to get half the result. I'm just guessing.

Even with all of that I completely prefer linguals, so don't take this as bashing them. I think sometimes you need both a little bit of luck as well as a really knowledgeable expert to get through the process with 100% linguals. It's trickier. Good luck, and I hope it goes smoothly for you if you go that route.

chinglnc
Posts: 82
Joined: Sun May 21, 2017 9:35 am

Re: Set back about lingual treatment

#9 Post by chinglnc »

and the big curveball was having to switch to regular (ceramic) braces for the finish.


That's a big twist! what was the reason? I always thought lingual does the same job as the metal/ceramic braces!

chinglnc
Posts: 82
Joined: Sun May 21, 2017 9:35 am

Re: Set back about lingual treatment

#10 Post by chinglnc »

Right, I went to see Ortho 3 and he has advised me to get Invisalign instead! Now I am really thinking they recommend what they can do best.

I told him I heard a lot of skeptical story about Invisalign but he said it has changed in recent years. He is very confident that he can fix my teeth using invisalign although he did warn me about the black triangles.

He also told me he have had 500+ patients on invisalign which really surprised me.

He showed me the invisalign modeling of a patient which was worse than my teeth. However when I asked him to show me pictures of a real patient photos he said he didn't have them on hand.

Is that normal? Do you not take pictures for Invisalign treatment?

Ortho 3 told me as long as I wear it religiously, it would work.

Did anyone has bad experience with Invisalign?

SinkFullOfDinner
Posts: 273
Joined: Mon May 23, 2016 2:25 pm

Re: Set back about lingual treatment

#11 Post by SinkFullOfDinner »

what was the reason? I always thought lingual does the same job as the metal/ceramic braces!
That's true, as far as I know. I think this was just an exception for him and a little unlucky for me. It was also probably the result of an early decision we (I) made which wouldn't apply to you, so I didn't think it was worth mentioning. But, way back when the linguals first went on, he was concerned that one arch didn't seem to have the normal "hand in glove" fit. A couple months later he said it might be better to have those brackets and wires remade, even though he thought he could probably manipulate what we had.

Re-doing it would have required letting that arch settle back for a couple months so new impressions could be made without things moving during the 6-8 week wait for the new brackets. So that meant something like a four mo pause plus time to get back the lost progress. I figured 6+ months would be added on and probably repeating the speech adjustment thing again. Not an option I was too enthused about! It's hard to agree to go backwards once you've started, so I said if he thought he could work around the issue well enough, let's keep moving forward.

Seemed like a good decision, things went well, and I thought I'd dodged a bullet. I didn't realize it had gotten challenging to manipulate things toward the end until my ortho said we had a decision to make about whether to just finish with regular brackets or spend a lot longer chasing the final moves with what we had. I was more than just a little bummed out about it, but decided to follow his recommendation and not make the same mistake twice. Lesson: once you're in it, just follow their best advice because closing your eyes and trying to wish a problem away doesn't really work. You're going to pay the piper one way or the other.
Last edited by SinkFullOfDinner on Fri Jun 23, 2017 10:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

chinglnc
Posts: 82
Joined: Sun May 21, 2017 9:35 am

Re: Set back about lingual treatment

#12 Post by chinglnc »

Thank you so much for sharing this! I have read few cases where they had to switch to normal braces towards the end too- I guess there are certain things that would be difficult to fix with lingual technology!

Have you finished your treatment now?

SinkFullOfDinner
Posts: 273
Joined: Mon May 23, 2016 2:25 pm

Re: Set back about lingual treatment

#13 Post by SinkFullOfDinner »

No, but hopefully close. The boring details are here viewtopic.php?f=3&t=50244

chinglnc
Posts: 82
Joined: Sun May 21, 2017 9:35 am

Re: Set back about lingual treatment

#14 Post by chinglnc »

your story made me chuckle a bit...haha....it's always interesting to read the comedy story around braces...

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