New member here from Adelaide Australia and I've had a great time searching and reading the many posts here before joining. Now, I would love some opinions from you.
This is my second time in braces and I had them for the first time between the ages of 12-14. I ended up with great results, but being a naughty teenager, I ignored my "nagging" mum and never wore my plates (in fact, I think in an act of rebelliousness I threw them in the trash!). Well, now I am 22 and have realised my mum is not so evil and its time to pay for my mistakes (literally!) and am now back in braces for an estimated 18-24 months since Dec 09.
Here is what my teeth looked like in the first week:
As you can see, my biggest issues prompting me to have treatment again was the relapse of crowding in my lowers, and my uppers swaying. In my original consult I asked my ortho how confident he was to fix these issues and he seemed very confident that my the swaying and crowding could be completely fixed, however my midline would remain a little off. This was the same after my first treatment so I was very happy to go ahead. As he noticed that I had put a lot of thought into going ahead with treatment a second time, he said he was excited to get things moving so he took all moulds, photos and x-rays during that first visit, and scheduled me to come back for brace day the next week. He also said that my treatment plan would involve visits every 6-8 weeks. I was very confident with this ortho.
However, I am now beginning to be a bit disheartened with the level attention my teeth are getting. After brace day, my first adjustment was 10 weeks later which was fine. lower and upper wire change was done. 2nd adjustment was 12 weeks after this as I was told things are going slowly. At this appt, only lower o-rings were changed. Even though I would have liked them to be closer to the 6 weeks I was used to from my first time round, 12 weeks is apparently quite normal for an adult so this was fine with me again. Now I have just been for my third adjustment and the ortho doesn't want to see me till the end of October... 19 weeks away! During the visit while my mouth was jammed open, he mentioned that he now wont be bracketing the back molars, which concerns me as the ones before them are not inline. I have been given one bag of elastics (5/16" 4.5oz) and told to change them when they break, and stop all together when I run out. He has also asked me to have another set of x-rays done before the next visit, and then reminded me that fixed retainers will cost me extra and off he went! Seriously, it was that random. So I asked the nurse why the long break and why was I reminded of the retainer cost now when I thought I have at least a year to go. She said she would check and give me a call with some answers. Well, I am still waiting for the call since last Wed, so I will be calling again on Monday.
So long story short (sorry for the wall of text above!), should I be concerned about an 19 week gap between adjustments? I would have thought that even if things are going slowly, the ortho would still have me in to monitor progress. Also, is it normal to leave the molars out of alignment?
Here are what my teeth look like now: (I swear they don't look as yucky in real life)
Thanks for reading and I would really value your opinions
Renee
