lingual braces and flaring

[nugget]

i am currently wearing lingual braces on my upper teeth and inovation c on my lower teeth. i had pretty crowded teeth to begin with as well as an overbite. at my consultation 6 months ago my ortho told me that if i didnt have extractions and wore lingual braces on the top my teeth would be straight but my overbite would not be fixed. the estimated treatment time at 18 months. he told me that i couldn't wear lingual braces if i extracted teeth. i asked him if the outcome would look ugly or my profile would look worse than it currently is and he assured me it wouldn't look ugly. fast forward to 6 months into treatment and while my teeth on top and bottom have straightened out considerably, i now have my front four teeth on top flaring out.

i expressed my concerns to him and he told me that since i had no room in my upper arch that is where they would go. he keeps pointing out how much better my smile is now compared to where we started and doesn't seem to find the flaring problematic. he said there was nothing he could do about the situation unless i decide to extract two teeth on top and wear regular braces for an additional 9-12 months on top of my remaining one year left. i am very stressed out and upset that he did not warn me of this outcome. i am thinking of going for a second opinion because i have heard it is possible to wear lingual braces and have extractions. he wants me to come back in two weeks and let him know if i want to pull teeth and slap on regular braces or continue as is. any advice would be appreciated.

[Huggypillow]

Hi

I dont have Lingual braces I have just metal top and bottom and I can't say that they are that bad, I don't think that I could have lingual though the thought of those puppies are enough to make me cry.

I don't think that I can help you much except when I was talking to my ortho about the topic he did say that here in australia there are fewer and fewer orthos wanting to do them due to being very complex and not straight forward and predictable as regular braces. He did however comment that the arch shape can differ slightly due to forces inside vs outside. He said to me in his opinion they don't tend to give the best results, he is certified to use them but won't practice with them at all, he said to me was that to him they are more time than they are worth.

Please don't take what I have said to heart but this was just a conversation I had with him. There is a thread on the site for lingual braces.

I have to speak a bit for work and at first I was a bit concious about it, but then i was like stuff it I don't care and I am happy about my shiny mouth.

I think if you had to switch to metal you might be happy as you see your results unlike being hidden behind.

sorry if i had rambelled

i had to change dentists last year as mine was about to retire and really didn't care much about suggesting i straigten my teeth, he said they suited me, when i saw my new dentist she suggested that i see an ortho and after that consult it seems that a lot of my problem were far from cosmetic. Hence why im in treatment it seems that doesn't matter how twisted your teeth are, some dentists never suggest it.

as far as the flaring i guess that kind of makes sence as the brackets are behind pushing forward, i guess brackets on the front are more likly to pull back. ( i'm not a dentist) it just seems like maybe thats the way it goes, i dont know

good luck
huggy

[diegorgeous]

I have lingual braces and i have 4 premolar extractions( 2 on top, and 2 on the bottom). I have never heard that you can't wear lingual braces if you have extractions. On the other hand, i have heard that you cannot where invisalign with extractions.
A skilled ortho (in linguals) will be able to use lingual braces with extractions. There are a lot of other people on this site that have lingual braces and had extractions. I don't really understand why your ortho will say that, you should get another opinion

[nugget]

yes now i'm very confused. he didn't elaborate but at my consult he said i was definitely not a candidate for invisalign and that linguals would work for me. the only thing he said was that if i pull teeth i can't wear linguals and if i do pull teeth i have to wear regular braces. at the time i didn't think to question what he was saying because he seemed to come highly recommended and to have lots of experiences dealing with lingual braces. right now i am trying to find second opinions but i am having a hard time finding someone specialized in them in the dc/md/va area.

i don't think i'm being overly sensitive with my teeth. i think most people, if they spend the time and money getting their teeth fixed want an ideal outcome-not a compromise. he seems to think that because things have straightened out i should be happy compared to my before. however rather than having crooked teeth i now have my front teeth noticeably flared out which is unacceptable to me. i really don't think he should have sold me on way more expensive lingual braces and not warn me of the side effects of non-extraction.

i hope i can find a lingual provider that will tell me that i can have extractions and still wear my linguals on top. do you know what brand linguals you have? i am not sure what mine are but looking at pictures online i know i do not have incognito brand.


thanks

[Crowded]

I recently saw four specialist lingual orthodontists in London to investigate the possibility of having Incognito braces. Three of these said I needed one or two extractions, one said I didn't need any.

Two of them said that in my case Incognito simply couldn't work without an extraction as I just don't have enough space in my upper arch, and both were quite shocked that I'd been told it was possible to have treatment without an extraction.

So in terms of what I've been told having extractions with lingual braces is no problem at all, in fact I'd been given the impression that the approach was no different to regular braces. I would definitely look for a second opinion, you're definitely right not to want to compromise!

[diegorgeous]

strange.........you should definitely look for more orthos. Do a search on the forum.

Also, my linguals are stb light brackets