Metal Mouth Message Board

Hi, everyone,

I'm new to the forum. Happy to have found it.

Do you remember those attachements/hooks they put on your teeth at the beginning of the treatment so that the aligners can anchor in and pull your teeth straight?
Does everyone has those hooks/attachements installed all at once at the beginning?
Has anyone have any experience with doctors putting them on in the middle of the treatment? Anyone has those hooks falling off?

So I went in to see my ortho today and asked why there haven't been any hooks on the left side of my upper teeths while there were 4 bumps/empty hook space on the aligners. The doctor seemed to be panicing and he said they must have falleng off. He put the hook glues inside the aligner and put them on my teeth. Then the doctor made a quick joke and avoided talking to me for the rest of the time. That's very strange because he was burying his face into his desk and he usually talks and say goodbye. Not to jump too far but he seems very nervous after that.

I haven't seen those attachments and believe me I do see myself in the mirror and wondered why for a while. Should've asked earlier. What they said is total BS because how could every other hooks stay on while only one clean side of the teeth has books fall off perfectly?) I can see that those teeth with missing hooks for a while are really off from the aligner and I"m afraid I have wasted my money for half of the treatment already. Since those hooks are added inside the aligner, you can imagine they are not doing any pulling for this treatment.

Does anyone has any similar experience?I'm very disappointed and I hope someone can help me here. Thanks a lot!

It certainly sounds suspicious.

I've heard of rare situations where an orthodontist will have a patient wear a tray with the attachment "bubbles" but without attachments for a week or two, but typically they only do that at the beginning of treatment to allow the patient to get used to wearing the aligners before having to deal with attachments. And while I did have additional attachments added later on, that was a planned part of my treatment plan and my aligners always matched up with the number of attachments I had at the time (i.e., there were never empty "bubbles" in my aligners).

It is possible for the attachments to fall off, but I would think you would have noticed that! Since it's been four months, your teeth wouldn't be tracking properly, so I would imagine that your orthodontist would need to stop treatment and do a mid-course correction so that everything can get back on track properly. It doesn't seem that just throwing the attachments on at this point is the right thing to do.

I'm sorry you've had to go through this! I'd suggest giving your orthodontist a call now that he's had a chance to get over the shock and tell him that your aligners don't seem to be fitting properly and ask whether it would be possible to do a mid-course correction or find some other plan to fix this.