What if my Upper Teeth are straight before bottoms?

[HDG182]

My upper teeth are almost perfect but my bottoms are still a little crooked. Will most orthodontists take off upper braces before bottoms or wait till everything is straight? I plan on asking my orthodontist next time I see him, but wondered if anyone dealt with this.

[ghotieyes]

My upper teeth moved much faster than my lowers. I only have teeny gaps to close up on both, so obviously I'm still fully braced. But if your uppers are done and your lowers still have yet to catch up, I'm pretty sure your ortho will keep you fully braced too. That way, if for whatever reason he needs to make adjustments on how the top and bottom interact, you won't have to go through the whole process again. He won't be able to put the brackets on exactly where they were before so you'd have to go through the progression of wires to do any additional work. (I've had mine off twice in the 3+ years for various reasons)

[socksy]

My uppers have been done for a couple of months now, but their brackets can't come off because there may be some minor changes that are required in the detailing stage. The lowers seem to take much longer for pretty much everyone.

[electrokitty]

I'm the wrong way round. My bottoms have been straight for ages but I'm still in top and bottom braces. I guess because I will be in class II elastics til the end, so my bottoms need to stay put for the elastics to hook on to.

[DrJasonKTam]

Making straight teeth is only one part of your treatment. Making sure the occlusion, or bite, is correct is another. Generally, in order to make sure the bite is correct, it requires coordination between the upper and lower jaws, meaning braces still need to stay on until this has occurred. Final arch coordination requires both the top and bottom teeth to be aligned first.

Probably not what you wanted to hear, but hope it helps :).

[signingsunflower]

Hi there! My uppers are almost all where they need to be but my lower jaw is a mess. I will stay braced on my uppers because the ortho needs them for elastics down the road to make sure everything lines up.