Metal Mouth Message Board

Well, I am now within a month of getting my braces off! When I went for my most recent appointment, they sectioned the wire on the bottom, so now it's only on the middle 6 teeth. The back teeth are free to float, and I'm wearing these super-long bands to connect all the top and bottom back teeth tog...

Are you getting braces on the bottom at all? If not, you don't have to worry about elastics. Without archwires (stiff ones at that) you can't really do eastics.

I think elastics are used in cases where the bite between the top and bottom teeth need to be aligned after the teeth are straightened. It is very common to need elastics during a comprehensive treatment.

They are not visible at all. But if you have to get elastics to correct issues, those are very visible.

Mostly Impalas and Rams, and a few Bear

So I got my new conventional braces wired up early this week. It was amazing once all the brackets were in place along with the archwires it made it dramatically visible how unaligned my teeth were after nearly 4 years of linguals. A rather thick NiTi wire was put in place, and it quickly got to wor...

I should tell you that the process of removing the brackets and buttons from my teeth was very traumatic. First he removed the brackets using some sort of a special tool. Due to the fact that my gums had basically grown around several of the brackets, this was easier said than done. After they were ...

Well my ticker says that I'm 3 years and almost 10 months into the process. Yesterday, after looking at my teeth for a long time, my ortho said that my case was no longer progressing, and I needed to choose between getting a new set of lingual braces or a set of standard braces. I've been wearing bu...

I clarified with my ortho what the oral surgeon was talking about. He (the surgeon) thinks I might need to get TADs to intrude my lower rear molars. He may very well be right. I don't see how the little wire is gonna be strong enough out there on the end to get it done. But we shall see! I should po...

I had no problems after my Wisdom teeth were removed, and for that I am very thankful. A couple of days ago I met with my ortho for the first time since they were removed. After looking at my bite, he did some wire bending in an attempt to get the rearmost molars on the bottom to intrude. Whereas my...

I had all of them removed. So far it hasn't been too bad. I was more concerned about the anesthesia than anything since I had never had that done before, but it really wasn't unpleasant. They gave me some hydrocodone for pain, but as of this morning I'm just taking Ibuprofen for soreness. I will sav...

I go in a couple of hours to get my wisdom teeth removed. Not looking forward to this at all!

I have had tons of clear buttons all over the front sides of my teeth for the past two years. If I had known I would have so many buttons on the front I likely would have just gotten conventional braces. Some folks are able to put their elastics on the lingual side, but on most of my teeth the brack...

Here is a view from about a month ago of my teeth. They look pretty much the same now as no elastics are currently being used. This is my "natural" bite as my ortho refers to it, but not how I bite normally. He says I am subconsiously moving my lower jaw forward in order to make the teeth ...

Another visit to my ortho today. The iBraces have been on for 3 years now, with no end in sight. My ortho says I have two choices: 1 - remove my wisdom teeth 2 - replace lingual braces with regular braces, and attempt to get the wisdoms straighter. There are no ibraces brackets on the wisdoms, so we...