Switching from Damons to Regular for two front teeth

[calypsojunky]

I've had braces for about 4.5 months now, and have moved on to the heaviest wire for my top teeth today. My orthodontist found that while my teeth are basically in alignment, my front two teeth still flare out. He said that in three weeks, if the heaviest wire still doesn't straighten out the problem, he might have to change those two to regular rubber-banded brackets so he can manipulate the rotation by inserting rubber bands to lift up the wire or something to that extent.
He said that while the Damon 3 was good for expansion, it could not be used for the fine-tuning he needed to do.
It makes sense to me.
I was wondering if anyone had this "fine-tuning" with regular brackets to fix rotations before, how how exactly it works.
Thanks!

[juf_84]

Hi calypsojunky!

I don't have damons and I haven't heard of this before, but like everything with orthodontics, there are so many different ways to do things.

I'm in self-ligating brackets as well, but they are made so that ligs can be put on them for extra pressure- probably for situations just like you're going through.

At the moment it sounds like it's only those two teeth that may have to have new brackets, and hey, if you've got to get ligs, why not have some fun and add some colour! That's the only thing I don't like about my brackets- no colour

Keep us posted!

Jennifer

[Whirliebird]

This is interesting, i went to my ortho on Tuesday and after 19 months of being in Damon 3's he said he wanted to replace my top 4 front teeth with regular type brackets to fine tune them.

I am really looking forward to the change and finally getting to the finishing line.

He did say he would be using tooth colour brackets too, so maybe on my xmas photos, and nights out i may even look like i'm not wearing my braces any more.

Aparentely he said he had started to do this with patients as the damon brackets leave a small area around the wire, and he will get a better final result with tighter 'normal' brackets.

[jennielee81]

I almost had to have my front teeth brackets replaced WITH Damon 3's. I have Opals and it is exactly the opposit from you whirliebird: that they needed to flair my teeth out a bit but the Opals were flexing with the wire rather than moving the teeth. I balked a little so...

Doc used the heaviest rectangle wire and gave it 3 weeks and told me he wasn't holding out much hope that it would do the job.....drum roll.....IT DID! No change for me.

Probably slowed down my progress for those weeks, but I didn't mind.

Here's hoping that the wire does the job for you (if that's what you want)!