What is this thing? (pic)

[jetxness]

so i did end up getting clear braces last week with blue coloured ligs...pictures if requested (i had heard differently from friends and then when reading i read the inspire ice and damon 3 as once sentence and became concerned because i really wanted colours...hence my last post).

it took 2 1/2 hours. the assistants broke several brackets while putting them on (is that normal?) they claimed it was because i eat a lot of food with lemon juice?

getting the braces on was not too bad but i did receive something i wasn't expecting from my ortho.

what is this thing? (name, any other info like if you have/had one, how long? etc) ... camera phone quality pics





the hooks lock in between my teeth and the last set of hooks (at the top of the 2nd pic) are more spring like and hook behind my molars.

it is giving me a horrible lisp. i do have permission to take it for small amounts of time while giving workshops etc and eating/cleaning.


******
the only other thing i have to mention is that i have had one bad experience with braces already. i was at a concert 2 days after getting my braces and it was crowded and i accidentally got hit in the mouth by a dancing person. my mouth/gums already hurt but this incident felt so much worse and also caused bleeding on my inner lips. no wires are bent or brackets broken though. i was thrown backwards by the hit just as some idiot behind me had decided to light a cigarette (illegal here in toronto inside of a bar) and my long hair got lit on fire and then i burnt my hand trying to stop the flames perhaps i should have spit blood at him.

[Dark_angel]

It looks to me like a bite plate. The idea is to stop you biting off your lower brackets. There is a thread on thishere

[Dark_angel]

It looks similar to these two:

http://www.dynaflex.com/lab/twinblock.shtml

http://www.dynaflex.com/lab/activeappliances.shtml

LUCY xxx[/quote]

I know it is not the twin block appliance as i've had one before and it can only be used when the patient is growing. Also it would require another appliance on the bottom.

Nor is it the scwartz appliance (ive had one of those too) because it has no place to expand from the centre. [/quote]

[susieq182]

it is a removable bite plate. Lucky dog to get to take yours out. I was not so lucky and mine was not removable. I have no clue what the springs would be for though.

depending on how bad your overbite is you will have it between 3-6 months possibly longer. The more you wear it the less time you will have it. It will help protect your lower brackets from being knocked off by your upper teeth.

Sorry to hear about the bad concert incident sounds like a pain in the mouth for sure and your poor hair and hand. Some people are so inconsiderate of others.
congrats on the braces and welcome to the club

[fitchick]

Hi Jetxness

I have one of those. I tried to load a photo but I couldn't resize it to make it small. I also have the lisp that comes with it! I think I was in shock when I got this, the TPA and the braces that I never thought to ask why? I think it is to stop me biting my lower braces off because when I take it out to clean I always end up crunching on the braces. I have also read that it is to stop (in my case) the upper teeth from moving. If anything my upper teeth have moved outwards more and now have more space between them. I go for my adjustment tomorrow and I will ask the purpose of the bite plane. I'll post again tomorrow to let you know the experts reason why its there!

Poor you getting hit in the mouth. Advice for next time - Spit blood!

Update to follow tomorrow.

Julie

[Lisa65]

Julie, I know this sounds a daft question but how is there room for one of those things AND the nance appliance? Where does the nance button go if you've got that thing covering the roof of your mouth?

(sorry to hijack your thread jetxness - I hope you've recovered from the concert incident!)

[jetxness]

there was no mention of the plate being there to stop me from biting off my brackets at the back.

what i mean by spring-like, is that the last two hooks instead of just going into the plate (like the others), these actually move (and there is a metal coil on top of the plate...you can kind of see this on the right side of the bottom pic). i have to move these hooks forward in front of my last molars when i fit the plate into my mouth and they want to spring back into their original postion; this applies a force on my molars towards the back of my mouth when i am wearing the plate.

my bite is apparently fine and i have braces for crowding and crooked teeth on both the upper and lower. i think this device is supposed be moving my molars back (as there is room back there) and then hopefully they can just keep moving things back and alleviate the crowding at the upper front? my upper molars don't actually have brackets on them right now btw. (no idea what they are going to do yet for the bottom where the crowding is worse)


(and as for the crooked teeth, my ortho is using something he calls rotational wedges. they look like very small pieces of grey lego under my archwire and require careful cleaning as stuff can get behind them that is not very accessible...the only problematic thing with them is that i tend to look in the mirror and think i have something caught in my braces until i look closer, because i do have something!)

[jetxness]

also, yes KK is right...it was the acidity of the lemon juice mentioned as the reason. i just didn't think i ate enough lemon juice that it would matter. although thinking about it now i have had a lot of lemonade within recent weeks because it has been hot, in addition to using lemon juice in yummy vegan sauces etc.

it wasn't that a diet with a lot of lemon juice broke the brackets directly, i think the assistants broke the brackets somehow when they didn't stick properly...so it was whatever was bonding the brackets on to my teeth that had the problem or the etchant.

[fitchick]

Hi it's me again,

I don't know if this helps at all but as promised, I asked my ortho today why I have the bite plane. For me, several reasons, 1) to stop me biting off my lower brackets, 2) to stop my lowers hitting and biting the roof of my mouth, but most importantly 3) to prevent my teeth moving forward. I guess we are all different and it maybe there for one of many reasons. Mine's there for the duration too so it's as well that I am getting quite attached to it now!

Hope this helps some.

Julie