Metal Mouth Message Board

Thought I'd check in and give you all an update on my 3rd exposure surgery last week. Everything went a.o.k. and the pain was really much less than I had expected, to my relief. I was awake through it and listened to the conversation between the ortho and surgeon. I have to say, it was mighty impres...

That's a good point. If I'm awake, I'll be able to hear what's going on and get in a nod or two if necessary. I'm not crazy about the idea of being asleep for it anyway. As long as I have enough painkiller I should be okay with it. I did fine on the last two. From your pictures, my canine looks posi...

Hi Ang! Actually, this is my 3rd! exposure. With the first one, the tooth was just uncovered and cleaned out a little around the tip and a button attached. The 2nd exposure, about a year later, a little bit more drilling around was done and a little more of the tooth area exposed. For the 3rd surger...

I just got back from a visit (8 weeks since the last) and the ortho doesn't see any progress in the x-ray. But she's not giving up yet. I'm scheduled to see the surgeon for another exposure on the canine in about 4 weeks. The orthodontist has talked to the surgeon about doing a more aggressive expos...

Wow! You've gotten quite a bit of progress even with the plastic thread. I wish I'd taken pictures of mine now. Maybe I could see something happening. My tooth is still about as high up as yours was in the first picture with the thread, I think. I'm hoping to be able to tell more about what's going ...

I agree with KK -- you can see a big difference given the short amount of time.

My own tooth is not nearly as close to the opening as yours is in the before picture. Yours also doesn't appear to be coming in at an angle. Is it?

Pam -- It's been a few weeks now and I'm real curious about the thermal wire. How's it going? Do you still feel the pulling on your canine? And news to report?

Thermal archwire? -- too cool!! Gee, I wish I could see a picture of how they have Ruth tied to the archwire. I would love to get mine going this way. I still can't see any difference, but when I poke my tongue up against the front it just feels like it's getting closer to where it should be. Hard t...

Hmmmmm... Wouldn't you think someone could come up with a better way to assess this than an educated guess? I wonder how often they end up pulling out and replacing a stubborn tooth (not ankylosed) only because they didn't find the right method to bring in the impacted tooth, or because they didn't ...

I'm really curious about your treatment. One of the biggest problems with pulling in my canine has been finding a good place, and a good method, to anchor the chain, wire, or thread that is attached to the tooth. It seems like every orthodontist has a different tool for this.

I'm in the Boston area. I have upper ceramics, lower metal. My costs are/were as follows: Ortho treatment: $5900 extraction of 1 tooth: $125 1st exposure of cuspid: $550 2nd exposure of cuspid: $500 Total so far: $7075 My dental insurance paid a whopping $73 towards this bill. :roll: And since I sta...

I wonder if this "PG Canine Retraction Spring" is it: http://medind.nic.in/maa/t03/i4/maat03i4p337.pdf

To those of you who have canines coming in, and to those of you whose canine has already moved into place, I was just wondering if you ever noticed that the tooth coming in felt different in your mouth than it used to even though you couldn't see any change. Is that all in my head, or is that real m...

I think I was the oldest patient he ever did this to. Later when I told him how bad I was for like 6 days, he was astonished. He said his other patients never had a problem then he said "however, they are all about twelve years old" My left cheek is still numb...almost 4 months later. But...

Way too Old for This -- Your cuspid sounds like it's coming in the same path as mine, but the surgery you had was much more invasive than what I had. My ortho started movement off (after exposure) by pushing the tooth back away from my front teeth. She noticed movement but I didn't and only later fo...