Metal Mouth Message Board

The start of my braces journey was May 3th 2004. Yes, indeed, that is 2004. All this
time, I have been posting about this in the Metal Mouth Forum. Now, I think it would
be a great idea to put my story here too. It deals about how badly a not that difficult
problem can evolve into a total nightmare. Or how wrong a treatment can be. And
how difficult it can be to rectify this again. Now, I could place here all the posts I did
make earlier in that other section. But that would make this so long that it would be
almost a complete book. No, I will try to describe what happened during that time by
setting out a certain number of POI's. Points of Interest that is. Brace yourselves for
a very long ride ...

All started with teeth looking like this :







In fact, my most important issue was my upper laterals hiding a bit behind
my central teeth and gaps between the lower teeth. It was like that during
many years, but added to that, these laterals did now hurt more and more.
It was like my upper arch was shrinking and by doing that, those laterals
were put under pressure causing a lot of pain. In the beginning, that pain
came and went. After some time, it was there all the time. My dentist did
look and did not see anything wrong, both the teeth and the roots. Not a
cavity or anything. I went to an ortho and she told me it could be a nerve
pain, due to those laterals being under pressure and behind my centrals.
She also said that none of my teeth were placed correctly. Almost every
tooth had some issue going on. Like not being in the right spot, or rotated,
or angled wrongly. Braces would help a lot, I was told. I did agree to start
the journey. Before that, I needed to see a periodontist to have some deep
cleanings. My gums did not look healthy, they did bleed a lot, even when I
only brushed my teeth, even gently. First, that issue needed to be rectified,
my ortho said. Some thorough cleaning did help a lot. I needed to wait 9
months to let those gums heal completely. Which they did.

Finally, May 3th my braces were put on. A month later, I decided to buy a
digital camera and could start making pictures :





First, she did align my teeth. That went rather well. It did not take that long
to make those laterals looking way better. These were happy times as one
could see a lot of improvement in a short time. My first upper molars were
rotated, hence the TPA that was put on in September 2004 :



The sky first was all blue, but now the first grey clouds were drifting into the
picture. I had a rather bad class 2 bite. On my left side the discrepancy was
the width of a complete premolar, on my right, it was half of that width. As
my teeth got aligned better now, this overjet, which was first sort of hidden,
became quite obvious and evolved in a pure overjet of about 6 mm. I got
class 2 elastics I had to wear all the time :

The clouds became darker. Because of both arches fitting a lot worse and
because of all those class 2 elastics (I know this now, but of course then I
didn't) my bite opened up and from that moment on, I also had an anterior
open bite :



My ortho saw this too and tried to compensate by using extra elastics in a
triangular configuration :



The weather became stormy. She lost control at that moment and started
using more and more elastics to compensate the opening of my bite. But
those elastics also had a contraproductive force in them that also needed
to be compensated. There were moments that I had more than 10 elastics
in my mouth at the same time :

In the beginning of 2006, my ortho said to me she was now totally clueless
about how to get my bite better. That confirmed what I was knowing already
a long time. She did align my teeth well. But she ruined my bite completely.
I had a very bad open bite and overjet. I had 2 rather well looking arches,
but they did not function together at all :



The overjet was about 6 mm, and the open bite was about 6 mm too. In this
picture, I promise I do bite down completely. The only teeth touching are my
first left molars. I had enough of this and decided to leave and go to another
ortho. I could make an appointment and was expecting to only get an idea
about what could be done about this. He was so astonished to see this that
he decided to start some work on this right away. He had never seen such a
mess. He made some major alterations and after about an hour, my braces
looked like this :



The idea was to extrude the front teeth, and at the same time he used some
tool to grind off some pointy parts of my first and second molars. That would
make them less high, and by doing so make that those molars didn't contact
so early when I bite down. It was very drastic and I hated to have this done,
but I had no choice he said. My open bite improved a bit because of this.
Another big issue to tackle was the overjet. He gave me a cervical headgear
that I would need to wear as much as I possibly could. I wore this for about 6
months and during all that time I still had an enormous amount of elastics to
further close my open bite :

But again treatment was failing. At least he had the courage to tell me that.
During that time, I also saw some oral surgeon who was convinced he could
make my bite a lot better. But I refused, because in the beginning, I did not
have an open bite like that. I really hoped that, if a bad treatment like I had
caused all this, then a better and correct treatment should at least be able
to reverse all the bad things and be able to improve my bite again. I really
believed orthodontics should still be able to help me. The second ortho did
not tell me I was wrong, but told me it would be too complicated to perform
the job himself. At that time, due to having all those elastics, my upper left
first premolar tipped so badly that the root broke through the bone, which
created a very dangerous situation. Things looked so bad now that he told
me that he just did not dare doing anything anymore. My bite then looked
like this :





So, what did I have at that moment :

- I lost a lot of the alignment that was achieved by my first ortho.
- I had an overjet of about 6 mm again.
- I had an open bite of about 4 -5 mm.
- I had molars that were looking quite weared down.
- A premolar was like hanging at the edge of a cliff, ready to fall.
- Absolutely no relation between the 2 arches, no occlusion at all.
- Bolton discrepancy (the width of my upper teeth versus the lower ones).

I decided to see yet another ortho. She is an university professor teaching
in some university orthodontics. I couldn't aim higher anymore, so I hoped
I would finally be helped there. She said things looked indeed really bad.
She told my teeth needed a resting period of at least 6 months. During that
time, I was sans braces and had as retention a set of Essix retainers :



Again, things went wrong. Because my molars were in those retainers too,
I could not bite down so well. Because of that, my open bite got a lot worse
again. She decided to cut my retainers so that they only did retain my front
teeth and not at all my molars anymore. My open bite didn't get any better
doing that, but then my front teeth started to get worse again, because the
Essix was now so short it was not able anymore to exert a proper retention.
I then got an upper Hawley to stabilize things a bit better :

When she finally did install my upper braces once again in the beginning of
August 2007, my teeth looked so crooked and my bite was so open :



The plan was now to close my open bite by intruding all my back teeth. To
do such a thing, one needs to have a fixed anchor point to be able to pull
the upper molars up. End of August, I had a surgery in which they placed 2
zygomatic bone anchors. These are metal plates, each one being fixed with
3 screws. They are placed a bit higher than the roots of the upper first and
second molars. It's all the way up, where the gum and the cheek meet each
other. After some weeks of healing, she finally started using these two bone
anchors :

But once again, things were not working so well. Numerous discussions I
had with my ortho. To intrude molars, it is vital to have a good force pulling
at the right spot. To this very day, I am convinced I had none of those. The
intrusion force was way too small. To get it bigger, I even got this dreadful
thing called a bite block :



Made by someone who probably didn't think one needs to wear that. It was
a total nightmare wearing this. I tried and tried over again, and finally said
this thing had to go. I gagged all the time, and it surely didn't help much the
intrusion of my molars. She tried to make it less thick, but so happily for me,
she ruined it. Another thing, the needed force was not in the right spot. All I
got was tipping of my molars in the direction of my cheeks and also towards
the front. That is when she made this strange looking thing, a labial bow :



Later on, after not seeing any intrusion at all, 2 micro screws were placed
near the first molars, but on the palatal side. But once again, I had bad luck.
They were unused some weeks after the insertion. One screw got loose
immediately and couldn't be used, the other one also got loose some weeks
later :



Ok, she tried yet another thing to intrude my molars. High pull headgear :

And so we finally reached summer 2008. I had yet another big discussion
with my ortho. I am convinced that my molars did not intrude at all. My bite
didn't improve one tiny bit. I had some new X-rays made and these showed
indeed no progress. I told her about the system called Rapid Molar Intrusion.
It consists of 2 quite heavy springs between the upper and lower molars to
intrude both of them. And to avoid tipping a TPA is placed between the upper
first molars and a lingual bar between the lower ones :





That is what I do have now. Will it work ? Like it is now made, no. Because
now I did find out that the springs she used are all wrong. They are Jasper
Jumpers, and they aren't the type needed to intrude teeth. After only some
days, these springs just sit there, doing ....... about nothing. Nah, I lie, they
give me a lisp and make eating very difficult.

That's quite some story, isn't it ?
And I am sure I can write this here and now : to be continued !

I am going to be the first to post on your blog Clo!

Now, I'm going to go and read it......

OH...MY...GOODNESS!

When I first starting reading your story Clo, I was intrigued. Needless to say, my jaw was hanging open by the end. The things you've had to endure is, well, ... jaw-dropping! I applaud you for sticking it out through all of that and I'm definitely keeping my fingers crossed that this new "gadget" will work.

Here I sit whining about a little pain after my adjustment yesterday . You are a trooper! I look forward to following your progress(yes, progress ).

WOW! What a story! Like jenny, my jaw is now hitting the floor after reading all that. Have you had every ortho appliance going in your mouth?
Do you wish you had never started treatment in the first place? I only ask because looking at your pics I think I would be thinking that.
Even my husband has just read your story after seeing the photos as I was scrolling down.
Kudos to you for having gone through all of that. I really hope things do work out in the end for you!

Absolutely amazing that you had to put up with all this nonsense

Who's footing the bill with all the failed attempts?

Absolutely amazing that you had to put up with all this nonsense

Who's footing the bill with all the failed attempts?