Metal Mouth Message Board

just started wearing midline elastics a week ago and i dont feel pressure any more. should i double them up? i know docs say youre not suppose to but ive heard someone say it worked for them and corrected the midline faster, ultimately leading to them getting the braces off faster. and also, and also what size rubber bands did you guys use for midline correction? i have 6 1/2 oz, size 3/16, 4.8mm heavy tortoise. can i use tighter ones?

I used midline elastics and my braces were taken off soon after. My 2 front teeth ended up slightly crooked. It's not too bad but I'm pretty sure it's from the elastic as that's the way it was pulling.

http://a64.tinypic.com/wv1zja.jpg

any body else? dont leave me hangin

What exactly are midline elastics? I've worn several different configurations, right now I'm in triangles, bottom molar/bottom canine/top canine, before that I had an inverted triangle on one side and a traditional upper canine to lower molar on the other, and for a while we did upper canine to lower molar on one side, and upper molar to lower canine on the other to try and pull the midline around. Are there more midline configurations? My midline is nearly perfect, but I could go over another half millimeter.

As for doubling up...don't do it unless your ortho instructs you to do so. Too much force can be damaging to your teeth. Your ortho knows how much force and for how long you need. Trust him and don't try to do something on your own to rush things. Moving teeth takes time, going faster can cause problems.

[quote="Beckett"]What exactly are midline elastics? I've worn several different configurations, right now I'm in triangles, bottom molar/bottom canine/top canine, before that I had an inverted triangle on one side and a traditional upper canine to lower molar on the other, and for a while we did upper canine to lower molar on one side, and upper molar to lower canine on the other to try and pull the midline around. Are there more midline configurations? My midline is nearly perfect, but I could go over another half millimeter. :lol:

As for doubling up...don't do it unless your ortho instructs you to do so. Too much force can be damaging to your teeth. Your ortho knows how much force and for how long you need. Trust him and don't try to do something on your own to rush things. Moving teeth takes time, going faster can cause problems.[/quote]


midline elastics is front cross elastics . same thing. when you put a rubber band at a top molar then across downward at a bottom molar.

I looked recently on this board to see chats about midlines and I only found minimal chats so I'm not sure how many people on here at the moment are resolving it.

I'm still very early into my treatment but I'm aware my midline is going to need to be fixed. How far in to your treatment has your ortho waitied to resolve yours?

I had an underbite and anterior open bite. During treatment, my midline shifted. I had been wearing class III configurations, so in order to correct my midline, my orthodontist had me wear the configuration on one side for 24 hours, and then both at night, top molars to lower canines with the falcon elastics.

[quote="strinder"]I looked recently on this board to see chats about midlines and I only found minimal chats so I'm not sure how many people on here at the moment are resolving it.

I'm still very early into my treatment but I'm aware my midline is going to need to be fixed. How far in to your treatment has your ortho waitied to resolve yours?[/quote]

yeah its not much help on here as far as midline corrections. but ive had my braces on for almost 3 years and u just started wearing midline elastics about two weeks ago. they were waiting till all the spaces in my teeth closed. i had spaces in between all of my teeth and a bigger one in between my two front teeth. i still have baby teeth and everything but they havent fallen out yet so they probably wont. but yeah they just waited until all my spaces were completely closed.

I have a midline elastic after my surgery in 2015. Definitely do not double up. I found that just wearing the one eventually caused my midline to over-correct, so I can imagine that two elastics would make that problem even worse. Follow your orthodontist's orders. I think I used the 6 1/2 size as it wasn't super tight. The fact you don't feel pressure anymore doesn't mean they're not working.

herefor1thing wrote:

strinder wrote:I looked recently on this board to see chats about midlines and I only found minimal chats so I'm not sure how many people on here at the moment are resolving it.

I'm still very early into my treatment but I'm aware my midline is going to need to be fixed. How far in to your treatment has your ortho waitied to resolve yours?

yeah its not much help on here as far as midline corrections. but ive had my braces on for almost 3 years and u just started wearing midline elastics about two weeks ago. they were waiting till all the spaces in my teeth closed. i had spaces in between all of my teeth and a bigger one in between my two front teeth. i still have baby teeth and everything but they havent fallen out yet so they probably wont. but yeah they just waited until all my spaces were completely closed.

Wow that sounds really similar to me! While I don't have spacing between my top front teeth I have it everywhere else with a 5mm space on it's own in one spot. My canine is also a baby tooth! Is that 3 years of just correcting the spacing or has there been other work your ortho has been up to? 3 years is a long time though, how far does it seem like you've got left of your treatment?

[quote="strinder"][quote="herefor1thing"][quote="strinder"]I looked recently on this board to see chats about midlines and I only found minimal chats so I'm not sure how many people on here at the moment are resolving it.

I'm still very early into my treatment but I'm aware my midline is going to need to be fixed. How far in to your treatment has your ortho waitied to resolve yours?[/quote]

yeah its not much help on here as far as midline corrections. but ive had my braces on for almost 3 years and u just started wearing midline elastics about two weeks ago. they were waiting till all the spaces in my teeth closed. i had spaces in between all of my teeth and a bigger one in between my two front teeth. i still have baby teeth and everything but they havent fallen out yet so they probably wont. but yeah they just waited until all my spaces were completely closed.[/quote]

Wow that sounds really similar to me! While I don't have spacing between my top front teeth I have it everywhere else with a 5mm space on it's own in one spot. My canine is also a baby tooth! Is that 3 years of just correcting the spacing or has there been other work your ortho has been up to? 3 years is a long time though, how far does it seem like you've got left of your treatment?[/quote]

yeah three years of correcting spaces, probably could have been done faster. i honestly think if went to a different orthodontist i would be alot further cause i hear alot about other ortho docs work being done faster. but where i go it seems like they take things very slow to lengthen the process (more money for them). but id say maybe another year and a half two years and they'll be off.