shaving/filing teeth?

[lochnessimposter]

does anyone know why some orthos do this but some do not? in order to make more room in my mouth 1 ortho i had a consult with said he would file my teeth to get some extra space. while others didn't say anything about this & said teeth would have to be pulled.

[sirwired]

This is not an unheard of way to make a little space, but the ortho needs to be careful not to file off so much that you are left with lifetime sensitivity.

[TheChico]

I actually had some of mine filed too but it was a personal choice because I had really bulky teeth lol

[microbrew]

I guess each practice/ortho must have their own opionion on when its necessary to do this. I always figured if your going to be shaving teeth down a bit it should be done near or at the end of treatment when all your teeth are in their ideal positions. Last adjustment i had the main ortho told the tech to grind down one of my central incisors and im thrilled he didnt do it, said it could wait, thankfully.

[Crafter]

Part of my treatment includes interproximal reduction (shaving) of the teeth. The need of shaving is to make room for straightening my teeth (and avoid an unnecessary extraction). I believe that if you need a little extra room, but not that much to need an extraction, shaving is the solution. They will shave tiny fractions of your sides of the teeth (probably not even noticeable) to make room for others to get in place. This is done in different places in between your teeth and, although the shaving itself is painless, the back and forth movement of the file (if done manually, like my ortho is doing) hurst because of the pressure.

You can find a lot of videos and reading material by googleing "interproximal reduction teeth" or something like that.

[midnight]

I'm meant to be having both my canine teeth shaved/filled and i'm really scared about it Apparently it will only be something like half a millimetre on each tooth that's needed so there's no need for a whole tooth to be extracted jut to make a millimetre of extra room in my mouth so I guess part of it's to do with how much room they need to create. They already removed all my wisdom teeth though so i guess that created some room!

[AndreeaS]

I'm kinda worried about the IPR I underwent on the lower jaw, because teeth look really separated from each other now..is this normal?

[Robot Teeth]

I will be refusing IPR at my next appointment. I don't care if they have to add a year onto my treatment time to work around this. I think of it like cutting off my toes to fit into a pair of shoes that's too small.

[sirwired]

I will be refusing IPR at my next appointment. I don't care if they have to add a year onto my treatment time to work around this. I think of it like cutting off my toes to fit into a pair of shoes that's too small.

But in this case, the "shoe" is your jaw. You may be just plum out of space. You can't stably "stretch" jawbone like you can a pair of leather shoes. If you are out of space, just extending your treatment time isn't going to help. Your ortho will have to make that determination.

(And, as a side note, rather unbelievably, people actually DO have surgery so they can fit their feet in fancy shoes... yikes!)

[LoveOrtho]

I've had IPR twice and I think it was a good choice, because I only needed a little space to reduce my overjet by like 1mm. I actually had some done yesterday and now I'm starting to really feel the powerchain Also, my front teeth were always too wide for my liking so shaving them made a little skinnier which was nice...
Klobird I understand where your coming from, but I think I do agree with sirwired, you only have so much space in your mouth...
~LoveOrtho

[Crafter]

IPR was, by far, the most uncomfortable thing of the entire treatment so far. Not the spacers, not the bracing, but the shaving, my teeth were so "loose" and sensitive that the back and forth movement and pressure really did hurt.

BUT, I am happy I got this done because I had a bottom teeth refusing to cooperate and move into place. After I got IPR, in a matter of 2 weeks the teeth was all beautifully aligned with the rest of the already aligned teeth. AMAZING!!!

I would shave the hell out of every teeth any day as long as it works as fast and perfectly as it did to improve my aligment and move forward to my goal in a quick manner (I really want my braces out ASAP).