Daughter's teeth

[plasmaboy]

Hi. Much like me, my 8 year old daughter has very crowded/crooked teeth. So crowded that cleaning her teeth is a 20 minute job twice a day. The dentist has extracted 6 baby teeth to try and make room for her adult teeth that are coming through thick and fast. Our orthdontist sees her every couple of weeks and so far she has headgear to maintain the gaps created by her extractions. She wears this 24/7 and never complains. I have asked if fitting fixed braces now will be a worth while exercise but so far they have suggested we wait til all her adult teeth have come through and stick with headgear. they extract milk teeth that have become stuck between her other crowded teeth. should i ask around others?

[Lisa65]

I think normally they do not put fixed braces until the 2nd molars are through at the age of about 12. Before that they can't align the teeth as they should be because there is still active jaw growth and new teeth coming through. Sometimes youngsters are given an expander if the upper jaw is narrow, or a functional appliance to hold back growth of the upper jaw to allow the lower jaw to catch up. Headgear can also serve this purpose by keeping the first upper molars back, to stop them sliding forward into extraction gaps. That way her adult canines and premoars will have space to erupt.
By all means ask around, but it sounds like your ortho has your daughter's treatment well in hand.

[jaswi]

headgear 24/7? sounds VERY excessive. So does the 20 minutes just to clean her teeth, but thats just my opinion of coarse, take it for what you paid for it.

[plasmaboy]

Her headgear isn't fixed and she clearly takes it off for eating, PE etc. But the ortho said the more she wears it, the better it will work. So she does. 20 mins to clean her teeth is her being diligent!

I am slowly reading and learning more about all this.

[retainerjoe]

sounds like your orthodontist is ontop of things , i wore headgear as an adult, an after getting use to headgear , it's not realy a big deal , mine to was removable i i was in mine 22 hours a day for a long time , it realy does a nice job of moving things around , i would stick with the headgear

[plasmaboy]

Well ten years later and she's 18! perfect teeth that look amazing. So proud. But it was a journey to get her this far. She now has bonded retainers on both top and bottom teeth - all that effort I wanted her to be confident forever more.

So to update the story of her journey : the headgear 24/7 thing soon went down to night time only. the orth gave her a retainer type of brace that had springs on that held the teeth in position during the day time. Also had a screw mech which had a quarter twist every other day - i think... She got through about 3 of those as she grew and they got lost damaged etc. That was just for her upper arch teeth which were now protruding and slightly crowded but the lower was still very crowded. Now she's about 11-12 years old & off to senior school. During this school year she had 4 premolars removed. 2 top and 2 bottom. Fixed braces top and bottom soon after. At first progress seemed quite good but slowed after 8-9 months. Her tops were coming on well with her front teeth much less protruding, still slightly overlapping but much better. Bottoms were getting there but still crowded. A spring was fitted at the front between brackets to try and create space - but after several months progress was very very slow. It was decided to remove another 2 teeth from her lower arch. By now she's 15, had 6 milk teeth removed and 6 adult teeth removed - thats 12 extractions!! However, with more space created the crowding was massively reduced and after another few months her bottoms were pretty much straight. Elastics and powerchain pulled her front teeth in enough so they no longer rested on her bottom lip and we were almost done!

She did end up going to her year 11 prom in a sparkly dress, sparkly heels and sparkly braced teeth but she didn't seem to care! Her retainers were bonded in and the tracks came off about 3 weeks into her first term at college. Now about a year after that we're watching things carefully as her wisdoms are pushing. The retainers are doing their thing and her teeth still look amazing. But she has already asked that if her wisdoms cause a hint of trouble then she wants them out straight away! Can't criticise that desire!

Anyway there we go. Story concluded.

[retainerjoe]

That's great to hear. Even my wisdom teeth at my age shifted my arch. That's one of the reasons my TMJ orthodontist put braces back on me back then.wisdom teeth removed. Teeth and Arch back in place and the braces removed.been in bonded and removable Hawley retainers ever since.

[plasmaboy]

Yup those wisdoms are doing thier thing. Looks like for my DD its time to think about getting those bad boys removed. I have booked her in for extractions early Jan '19. Seemed harsh to do it this close to Xmas. She'll probs have them all out at once - assuming no hitches. Am nervous for her!!

[retainerjoe]

Sorry for her.so the holidays are going to be memories of wisdom teeth . will pray for fast quick recovery