Anybody have some information on vintage ortho?

[bannishg]

Recently I have been told that I might need braces, and I have been spending a lot of time over the past few days doing research and trying to get an idea of what I may be in for. Since I am a history buff, I also am curious about how orthodontic issues may have been treated in the past. I realize that most people on this blog are in adulthood and going through the experience for the first time, but is there anybody here that is versed in the braces of yesteryear? I'm not talking about the 90's or even the 80's, but like the early 70's and prior, you know, before gloves were even being used. I would be especially interested in seeing photos of the horrific looking gear that was installed in people's mouths during the WWII era! This was when the term "metal mouth" was being used without hyperbole!

[Kipepeo]

I'm really interested in this as well! I had my first set of clears that yellowed back in the early 80's, so it doesn't qualify. But by then they were glued on and not banded around each tooth.

[starfish88]

Certainly it was a lot less common in my grandmas generation. i think they didn't really see the point, the idea of keeping teeth for life is quite new it seems. I still get comments from older people who ask me why I'm doing this when I'll probably have dentures in 20 years or so. (I'm 24!). I'm doing this so I don't.

[Angel269]

I found an article on the net yesterday about senior citizens having ortho work (if you google it, I can't remember the link) and there are pictures of braces through the decades on there too.

My Grandma is 72 and she said aren't you too old to be doing this (I'm also 24).

[HF]

I've got an old book I bought on ebay called Practical Orthodontics by Dewey, published in 1942. Some of the photos look pretty horrific. There were no glue-on brackets so each individual tooth had to be banded.

If you're in the UK and want the book for historical interest, you can have it for the cost of posting. I've also got another one called Current Orthodontics published in the 1960s. Just PM me if you are interested. I'm 3 years post-braces now so the interest has kind of worn off

[plugnickel69]

I can tell you from personal experience with braces in the late 50s to early 60s. Bands/brackets on every tooth. They took forever to make by hand as each band was hand-fitted then soldered together, then the bracked was soldered to the band. The bands were not smooth on the inside, as the metal rectangles that formed the bands were overlapped before being soldered. Spacers often had to be used between every tooth to make room for the bands, then the spaces closed up at the end with retainers. The ligs were wires, not elastic, so the only color anyone sported was metal. Hooks were not part of the brackets, but were soldered to the wires, all of which I believe were stainless steel in those days. Contrasted to the 30 minutes or so it takes to get braces installed today, I remember installation as a many months process, and most people seemed to get one jaw done at a time. In my case it was the lower one first.

Many of us wore bite plates starting before the braces were installed, had 4 teeth pulled, wore headgear at night, and used elastics from lower molars to upper canines to pull teeth into place. There were no powerchains, but steel springs were often used. Seemed like the total process often took close to 3 years for most. I remember two girls in my class who wore full braces from 7th through 12th grades. One of them started the orthodontic process in grade 5.

Retainers were Hawley for the upper jaw, but I never in those days saw anybody with a lower Hawley. They use a lower lingual wire, usually attached from molar to molar. I still don't have a clue as to how that was supposed to work, and it often broke after a year or two.

[mudshell1]

Aaaaah! I had braces for the first time in the early 90s. My ortho was oooooollllld school. While all my friends were sporting cool ligs and smaller silver glued-on brackets, I had fully banded teeth and wire ligs, headgear at night but no rubber bands. Your reply just brought back all the horrors! lol My ortho banded both jaws and every single tooth on the same day, cutting through my back gum in the process. I kid you not - that was worse than child birth.

This go-around is a breeze. Clear brackets, niti wires, clear ligs or colored ligs of my choice, and NO PAIN!! Well, no pain compared to my first experience.

[sportgrl09]

I had it kind of bad in the early/mid 2000's, four years of braces, 12 bands, bite stoppers on the back of my teeth, power chains on top and bottom, palid expander on the top, reverse pull facemask.. worn 12 hours/day...I didn't cooperate with it so my dad gave my orthodontist his signature to tie it in with these horrible coil springs for 10 months which led to a lot of embarrassment. I really wish I had pictures of it.

[Glandyover]

What's really interesting is the really early phase of modern orthodontics. Angle was the ONLY authority of the day and everybody pretty much listened to him. He didn't believe in extractions so they tipped the molars out to make room much like the Damon system practitioners do. After his death, Keen (one of his pupils) started examining failed cases, performing extractions and retreating them. This was controversial so they started actually looking at the molds of patient's teeth to show that it was, indeed, a good strategy to extract teeth. Imagine having fully banded teeth, going through years of braces only to have it fail and then having teeth pulled and getting those bands put on again for multiple years. People must have been DESPERATE for straight teeth to go through that!

[80sBraceFace]

I had braces in the late 70s and early 80s. I suppose headgear looks pretty much the same today, but the braces looked very ancient compared to how they look these days (the brackets seem much smaller these days). There weren't any cool colour ligs, or maybe there were but I was not offered it... instead I had metal ligs, and for a while also wire tire. A full metal mouth! And the powerchain was in a dull beigeish colour, most of all it looked like I had food stuck in my teeth all the time.

My dad had braces in his teens, in the late 50s. He has not talked about it that much, but when I complained about mine back in the 80s he said they were nothing compared to what he had to suffer through. I guess it was full bands, and that must have been horrible.

[dilynn1958]

I am starting over again. I had original braces back in the early 60's. Yes I had the full metal bands ( I still have one they made as a charm). I wore the headgear. I swear I had to wear it to school. I don't remember a ton but I had them for 5 years. When I was done I had the traditional retainer on the top, but nothing on the bottom. I think what hurt the most was putting the bands on and yes cutting into the gums. Taking them off hurt as well due to all the pressure…Also I had so many extractions.
Fast forward 42 years and starting all over again.