Root resorption

[Mpkh]

But then again, we have a saying in Portugal that goes something like "of good intentions is hell aplenty", and I guess that goes to say that misguided good intentions are as evil as bad intentions.

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions” would be the English equivalent!

[assertives]

You need a new orthodontist. There are a lot of good, competent and kind orthodontists around. Don't give up looking and settle for the one you obviously cannot work with.

I know... I'll be actively looking again to see if someone else can take me in, even if that means removing current braces and pay for new ones. This one does not seem to know what she's doing and I'm saturated of her not even listening to me.
[/quote]

Money can be earned again, but damage to your teeth may possibly be irreversible. If she's not competent enough to fix this messy situation now, despite her best efforts, she's not going to suddenly develop the competencies required within the next couple of months or so to get you to your desired treatment outcome. At this stage, I honestly do find it would be quite pointless to continue your treatment with her.

I also do think it would be more realistic to go to another ortho and treat this as a brand new case instead of as a continuation of your "previous treatment plan" kind of situation.

[Mpkh]

You need a new orthodontist. There are a lot of good, competent and kind orthodontists around. Don't give up looking and settle for the one you obviously cannot work with.

I know... I'll be actively looking again to see if someone else can take me in, even if that means removing current braces and pay for new ones. This one does not seem to know what she's doing and I'm saturated of her not even listening to me.

Money can be earned again, but damage to your teeth may possibly be irreversible. If she's not competent enough to fix this messy situation now, despite her best efforts, she's not going to suddenly develop the competencies required within the next couple of months or so to get you to your desired treatment outcome. At this stage, I honestly do find it would be quite pointless to continue your treatment with her.

I also do think it would be more realistic to go to another ortho and treat this as a brand new case instead of as a continuation of your "previous treatment plan" kind of situation.
[/quote]

I agree with assertives.

It doesn’t sound like continuing your treatment with your current orthodontist serves any real benefits. You’ve only complained about her handling (or I guess more appropriately, mishandling) your treatment in nearly all your posts. You don’t agree with the steps she’s taken in your case, and you’ve refused procedures from her. You doubt her competence. You have no trust in her. Trying to make her clean up “her mess” doesn’t sound all that realistic, from what you’ve posted so far. I understand why you’d want her to fix “her mess”, but it just seems like it’d be a pointless endeavour.

You don’t have a healthy relationship with your orthodontist, and it doesn’t sound like that’s going to change anytime soon. What are you realistically getting out of continuing your treatment with her? It seems like with each appointment, you have some new complaints and concerns...I do not think that’s going to change if you continue to go see her.

Why have you not file a formal complaint against her? Surely she registers with a orthodontist governing body. You have serious concerns regarding the care you’ve received from her.

It would be more prudent for you to de-brace and start new with another orthodontist.

[Vive18]

I'm really sorry to hear that, having suffered so much at hands of mine, and I hope things turn out for the best... They mean well, I'm sure (or I want to believe so), but they are misguided by perfection and lead you down paths that you don't want or truly need, just to get perfect teeth out of you. I know mine did, even resorting to lies to get me to extract healthy teeth when her goal was not what I needed nor asked of her (or was even disclosed to me!). But then again, we have a saying in Portugal that goes something like "of good intentions is hell aplenty", and I guess that goes to say that misguided good intentions are as evil as bad intentions. If you're almost done just let the teeth be. If I did not have the extraction gap (STILL, after 1 1/2 years of making this mistake) and a horrible smile you can bet I would be done a long time ago, as perfection was never a goal of mine.

I think me and my ortho have different ideas of what is aesthetic. I'm not happy at all with the way she has made my smile really flat at the front (I'm not sure if I'm describing that correctly). I prefer more of a curve forward. She also reduced my upper tooth show, and I've been unhappy ever since. I've actually been in braces for over 2.5 years now (half a year of that was inactive treatment, as I was grieving the sudden loss of one of my parents).

To top it all off, I was being set up for jaw surgery. So my bite is set up in a way that it would fit if the jaw was moved forward. The upper teeth are not in the correct position for that yet (and won't be if the root resorption will prevent any more movement). It's all been a big disaster if you ask me, and I preferred my smile before I started all of this

What don't you like about your smile? Which teeth were extracted?
It's sound like we both have very unhealthy relationships with our orthodontists.

The advice given to you by assertives & mpkh above, was actually excellent advice for myself to hear. The financial cost is what has always held me back from switching. But I may be paying for it in the long run.

I can't even talk to my orthodontist anymore. It's a really weird relationship. I feel trapped - and that I have no right at all to even give an opinion on how I prefer my smile to look. When I spoke up originally, I was made to feel as though I was insane! I didn't pay all this money to be unhappy and dislike my smile, and now have root resorption!

[pcspinheiro]

Wow, do we have the same Ortho somehow??? I got the same bull when I complained about the flat smile and the teeth not showing.

[pcspinheiro]

Sorry for not replying more thoroughly but was on my way to bed.

After seriously considering all your comments, here and elsewhere (and I do know you are just random strangers on the net, but you do seem to genuinely care about another random stranger 1/2 world away), and after seeing that my extraction gap has closed zero mm in the last 2 months (as it should have, considering that it's physically impossible to move teeth when the forces applied are already way inferior to the friction of the wire with the molar tubes), that my smile remains untouched despite insistent complains for well over 1 year, that my complaint of a narrower mouth and speech problems were never considered seriously, that my lower wire has not been changed in over 10 months or so (I lost count...) despite my insistent request that we try reverse curve wires, that my canines still conflict with the lower brackets and or canines forcing me to bite and rest my mandible too far back and ESPECIALLY the fact that I'm never listened to from the start, I will attend my next appointment to ask to be debraced and get an X-ray to check up on my teeth/roots

As you might imagine, this is not an easy decision, because I'm far, far worse now that when I began, and there's a real fear that i can be made worse (though when you hit rock bottom you can only really go up). Even though it annoys me deeply to have to pay for braces elsewhere, it's fortunately not really the issue, as I make in 1 month what the full 2 years of braces were due to cost. But mentally it's really hard for me to have so many problems that I did not have before, and have to go pay someone else to get them fixed, if they ever can... At least now I know better, and if a clear plan is not made addressing MY goals and MY problems, then I will just say, no thank you. Whoever takes me in HAS to accept that I'm not looking for perfect teeth and that I will not accept a plan that I'm not 1000% confident in.

With that said, I do hope you get your own problems sorted. I really looks like your ortho is either friends with mine or trained in the same school I truly feel for you and can fully understand the anger and frustration. I just hope I won't be looking at appreciably shorter roots in 1 week from now...

Cheers!

[pcspinheiro]

Appointment booked at new clinic, was lucky to meet Ortho at reception and very briefly (and without much detail) explain issue. She looked sympathetic and asked for any documentation of my initial condition. She said I may or may not keep my current braces depending on weather they work with the same brand. However, I will debrace with the other one anyway as I don't want the new one to feel limited or obliged to work with this to save me money, plus, I believe many brackets are placed wrong so I want new ones correctly placed. This will hopefully aldo show her finally how bad I feel about her treatment.

Cheers!

[assertives]

Appointment booked at new clinic, was lucky to meet Ortho at reception and very briefly (and without much detail) explain issue. She looked sympathetic and asked for any documentation of my initial condition. She said I may or may not keep my current braces depending on weather they work with the same brand. However, I will debrace with the other one anyway as I don't want the new one to feel limited or obliged to work with this to save me money, plus, I believe many brackets are placed wrong so I want new ones correctly placed. This will hopefully aldo show her finally how bad I feel about her treatment.

Cheers!

Great! Hopefully this is a great step in the right direction. Have you decided/confirmed starting treatment with this one? Also, if you know you are already going to stop treatment with your current ortho, can you not make a request to be debraced earlier instead of waiting for your next appointment and at the same time get all your charts/xrays/records?

I personally wouldn't delay getting started on fixing what's wrong now, plus if the brackets were placed wrong anyway, having them on for longer isn't going to be beneficial and would probably create more for the new ortho to correct in the end. You should work in mitigate damage mode.

[assertives]

I'm really sorry to hear that, having suffered so much at hands of mine, and I hope things turn out for the best... They mean well, I'm sure (or I want to believe so), but they are misguided by perfection and lead you down paths that you don't want or truly need, just to get perfect teeth out of you. I know mine did, even resorting to lies to get me to extract healthy teeth when her goal was not what I needed nor asked of her (or was even disclosed to me!). But then again, we have a saying in Portugal that goes something like "of good intentions is hell aplenty", and I guess that goes to say that misguided good intentions are as evil as bad intentions. If you're almost done just let the teeth be. If I did not have the extraction gap (STILL, after 1 1/2 years of making this mistake) and a horrible smile you can bet I would be done a long time ago, as perfection was never a goal of mine.

I think me and my ortho have different ideas of what is aesthetic. I'm not happy at all with the way she has made my smile really flat at the front (I'm not sure if I'm describing that correctly). I prefer more of a curve forward. She also reduced my upper tooth show, and I've been unhappy ever since. I've actually been in braces for over 2.5 years now (half a year of that was inactive treatment, as I was grieving the sudden loss of one of my parents).

To top it all off, I was being set up for jaw surgery. So my bite is set up in a way that it would fit if the jaw was moved forward. The upper teeth are not in the correct position for that yet (and won't be if the root resorption will prevent any more movement). It's all been a big disaster if you ask me, and I preferred my smile before I started all of this

What don't you like about your smile? Which teeth were extracted?
It's sound like we both have very unhealthy relationships with our orthodontists.

The advice given to you by assertives & mpkh above, was actually excellent advice for myself to hear. The financial cost is what has always held me back from switching. But I may be paying for it in the long run.

I can't even talk to my orthodontist anymore. It's a really weird relationship. I feel trapped - and that I have no right at all to even give an opinion on how I prefer my smile to look. When I spoke up originally, I was made to feel as though I was insane! I didn't pay all this money to be unhappy and dislike my smile, and now have root resorption!

If you haven't already, you should also seriously consider finding a new ortho to continue your treatment. As I have mentioned in my earlier post, money can be earned again eventually, but the health of your teeth, jaws and bite unfortunately once damage has occurred it is sometimes not reversible. It's unfortunate that you have root resorption and are actually set up for jaw surgery. I'm not a doctor but it may be possible to work around that and not aggravate the root resorption further to get your other teeth in a position that works well enough to get the surgery for your jaws to get an at least functional even if not perfect bite. So don't give up.

As I've mentioned in an earlier post, there are many good, competent and kind orthodontists around. You should focus your energy and time to seek another with urgency especially with the root resorption complications that are not in your favor, and then work together with him/her or discuss your options to get your bite fixed. Think long term, this is something you would need to deal with for the rest of your life.

[pcspinheiro]

Great! Hopefully this is a great step in the right direction. Have you decided/confirmed starting treatment with this one? Also, if you know you are already going to stop treatment with your current ortho, can you not make a request to be debraced earlier instead of waiting for your next appointment and at the same time get all your charts/xrays/records?

I personally wouldn't delay getting started on fixing what's wrong now, plus if the brackets were placed wrong anyway, having them on for longer isn't going to be beneficial and would probably create more for the new ortho to correct in the end. You should work in mitigate damage mode.

My next appointment is in less than 1 week and I wouldn't find one sooner. This morning I cut the elastic that was being used to close the extraction gap (which was doing nothing as it was way past it's elasticity point) and removed the lace back wire. I'll just say it started poking my cheek and I had decided to debrace anyway, so there...

I only have an appointment with the new Ortho in September, maybe sooner if someone misses an appointment.

[pcspinheiro]

BTW, it will be nice to spend my summer vacation brace-free

[pcspinheiro]

I'm glad I cut the elastic ligature and removed the laceback wire! Since there was no way to relieve the tension exerted on the front teeth by means of wire sliding and tooth movement this was actually causing my front teeth to go crooked again! The central incisor that used to be behind the other one was now starting to tilt the other way around. This is so infuriating! I can't wait for next Monday to get rid of this woman's incompetence. I just hope for better luck with the next ortho, but now I know better, and the plan will be made very clear from the start to address MY issues only. If there is something I don't agreed with, that a definitive NO. I will also make suggestions right on the first appointment, to probe the possibility of getting the best result possible. I could and should have been fitted with a TAD over 1 year ago, to distalize the teeth on the non-extracted side, but now I fear it may be too late due to bone loss. For may goals I only really need 2mm of retraction, so lets see.

[pcspinheiro]

Braces are off and there is no noticeable root loss at all, with all teeth showing long, pointy roots on the orthopantomogram. I was really fearing for one of the canines, that had been hurting for months now. Now it's on to the next journey of finding a new ortho that's willing to focus on the issues that afflict me and not with what might be wrong with my mouth but that does not bother me nor I care about.

Good luck with your journeys, but you'll be sure to see me around in the future

[assertives]

Congrats! Enjoy being brace free for now!

[Mpkh]

An update for those of you following:

I went to my scheduled orthodontist appointment today, and after explaining what had happened during my dentist appointment, the orthodontist opted to take his own set of panoramic X Ray (the X Rays that my dental office had sent over we’re bite wings, and he and wanted a panoramic view).

The x ray showed root shortening on my incisors, both top and bottom arch. The orthodontist wasn’t overly concerned with the amount of shortening—at least, not to the point where the braces had to be off now. So that’s good. On the flip side, root resorption isn’t anything good, though it is an expected effect of braces. He also said that the roots seem shorter than they are on my top central incisor because they were tilted a bit.

So we continue with the planned treatment. I got more IPR done today. The orthodontist hopes to take impressions for retainers on my next visit, and then the braces should come off soon after that. If all goes well, I may have them off in two visits. So I may actually get them off by the end of the year, and be more or less within the 18 month projection of my estimated 18-24 months treatment when I get them off.