Anyone having the old-fashioned, manually bent wires?

[DireWire]

Fellow BraceFaces,


just had my first adjustment, and things went from hard to harder.

Last time when I just checked in to get the wire clipped I got the bite plate. This time, my discrete small, straight and thin wire was replaced by sthg thicker... and not only thicker, but manually bent into weired U-shapes and loops that resemble the bottom end of a security pin and some other manually created curves.

I do understand that these shapes create a force that moves the individual teeth in individually set directions. Insofar, this is great.

The bad news are that
- the loops, although round, poke heftily into the lips and soft tissue. It was quite torn by the first evening, and the 20 boxes of wax from Dentakit haven't arived yet.
- also, it changed the look from pretty straightforward and discreet to a strange looking metal mouth with a prettty stunning construction of loops and U's and more.

My ortho said this would reduce treatment time by several months... teeth move where he wants them to, as opposed to the pre-shaped wires that tend to move everything into the standard direction and working less precise. He said he went from the bended wires to the pre-shaped spring wires back to a hybrid back to the bended ones... quicker results. (He gave me the choice: the ones that are (i) marketed toay and (ii) more comfortable or the ones that work faster and more customized. Actually, he was preparing the wire already while he exlained it... so he didn't really give me a choice.)

The crooked front teeth started moving directly, and some others (molars) at least hurt quite strongly when chewing... so I know sthg is happening there, too.

Question: Anybody else having this somewhat old-fashioned, weird-looking style, or am I the only soul who goes thru this?

Any forum opinions which approach is quicker? Any differences in end result (whcih I would find surprising)

DireWire

PS... my sentence is 12-18 mths to corect a class II deep overbite and overjet with crooked teeth

[kaycee]

I had the same type of wire you are describing, with loops bent into what looked like the end of a safety pin. For me, the loops were used to close some pretty big extraction gaps, my ortho called it a closing wire and since he needed to line the loops up with the gaps, it only made sense that he would bend it himself so that it would fit properly. I wore those wires for three months on top, five months on the bottom so they did the job.

I can certainly sympathize with the discomfort, it took me a week until I could chew or drink anything cold. A lot of food gets caught in those loops too.

kaycee

[Marzipan]

A few times, my ortho has taken out the archwire and manually bent it a little to give some torque to a certain molar and make it rotate. That's as far as it's gone, though. That tooth would become tender for a few days. Overall, though, my own situation was fairly straightforward, utilizing the placement of brackets and a set of increasingly thicker archwires to make everything align. Rubber bands were used extensively to close gaps.

[platinum]

I am getting bends on my lower archwire. In my last two adjustment there has been just bend-adding.

[jennielee81]

My very high-tech ortho also bent my wire frequently to move things along.

It's not old-fashioned at all! It's quicker and easier than repositioning brackets all over the place.

[Naranja]

i have 2 bends too... (u shaped) right before my molars, and then added powerchains to close the gaps from extractions

my ortho said he did those bends because he didn't want my molars come forward... so it's like a "stop"

[Zondrae]

I get bends all the time. I'm in the end stage of treatment & he tweaks the wires in all sorts of ways.

[Regina Rose]

My ortho said this would reduce treatment time by several months... teeth move where he wants them to, as opposed to the pre-shaped wires that tend to move everything into the standard direction and working less precise. He said he went from the bended wires to the pre-shaped spring wires back to a hybrid back to the bended ones... quicker results. (He gave me the choice: the ones that are (i) marketed toay and (ii) more comfortable or the ones that work faster and more customized. Actually, he was preparing the wire already while he exlained it... so he didn't really give me a choice.)

Did you tell him before this that you wanted to be out of braces as soon as possible, even if that meant more discomfort and pain?

I have closing loops so I have some idea of what you're talking about. But from your description, it sounds like your ortho is going way beyond what is "typical" in order to speed up the process. The question I would have is whether the additional suffering is worth it to you (it wouldn't be worth it to me!).

One other thing: There are good reasons for NOT moving teeth too quickly. My ortho recently told me he could speed things up a bit but considered it unwise as that can increase the chances for relapse. I appreciated this because, from the the ortho's perspective, the longer a patient is in treatment the more costly it is for him.

If you find yourself too uncomfortable, don't be afraid to tell your ortho to slow down - you're the customer here.