Metal Mouth Message Board

You should be happy, some of my adjustments have been epic - lasting over an hour. By the end of it I'm sweating and trembling with stress. Also, it hurts having to keep your mouth wide open for an hour!

What's worse is when you have two adjustments close together and your teeth are still hurting for the previous adjustment - I have cried on one of those days!

Mine take about 20-25 minutes, including cleaning.

I guess a normal adjustment takes around 20-25 minutes just like the previous poster said... Still I am anxious because I feel little to no pain and I'm beginning to question whether this treatment is right for me....

malilou25 wrote:I guess a normal adjustment takes around 20-25 minutes just like the previous poster said... Still I am anxious because I feel little to no pain and I'm beginning to question whether this treatment is right for me....

I don't think you should base effectiveness of treatment on pain. You might just be a lucky one whose teeth are complying nicely. I had virtually no pain (sensitivity and tenderness, sure) until this last adjustment. After my August adjustment I was in tears and it was the first time I had a "I want to rip these things out" moment.

If you're in doubt about anything just talk to your ortho.

Generally around 20-30 minutes. Yesterday my adjustment was longer due to my incessant questions and asking my ortho if he could shave down the jagged edges of my top front teeth to make them look more cosmetically appealing (which he did), and to ask whether he could close my gaps sooner, which led him putting on double power chains on the bottom. So yesterday was closer to 40-45 minutes. The way I see it is, I am paying just shy of $7,000 grand out of pocket and will need to pay the oral surgeon $8,000 out of pocket, so I make them WORK for the money! lol

We book 30 minutes for each adjustment appointment and rarely are our patients waiting more than 10-15 minutes. 30 minutes is a luxury in ortho offices since it allows us to do everything we need to do at each visit, so that treatment can continue to progress properly. We also take the wires out to allow each patient to brush/floss... something our patients love. Having this much time also means we don't jam patients in where there isn't time, which helps keep us on time also! It is definitely on the longer end for an appointment, but how I decided I want to practice.

Our Invisalign visits are booked for 15 minutes unless there is IPR, in which case 30 minutes is booked. These visits do not take the full amount of time, so we can often catch up here.

Patients will see me at each visit, albeit for a minute or two, in order to give instructions for what should be done, and for a final check if necessary.

Maybe 15 minutes.