do we all have moments where it feels like our progress stopped?

[Tyrantblade]

Im past the 7 month mark out of 24 months estimated treatment time

Im happy overall as i realize a lot of progress happened, but at the same time i sort of feel like nothing has been happening for over a month now

To top it off, its 3 months from my last adjustment to my next one (which at this point is only a few weeks away), so i guess i sort of feel like there was a whole extra month just wasted

Im sure more is happening than i realize and im just at a point where it feels like time and progress is dragging on

Is this a normal thing?

Also my next adjustment is going to be a little different, they told me that they will take new X-Rays (they have some fancy X-Ray machine they seem to make treatment plans with, guess it shows extra detail compared to a regular X-Ray machine you usually find in a dentist office) and move brackets around as they need to

Is that also something that we all go through? Does a lot more progress seem to happen when they do that?

Man i wish i could fast forward time for a few weeks so it would be done and more obvious progress would happen

At this point im hoping my top right side corrects itself somewhat further so it looks close to my top left side

With my main problem being an interior open bite and my bottom teeth not being at a bad starting spot (not "perfect", but basically only a few crooked teeth, which seem to have corrected) im always going crazy about my top arch

[musicbrace]

I went through the same thing!~

My teeth were beyond crazy-messed up and at the beginning, it was the most exciting part of the treatment.
Now that everything is where it should be, things are moving slower and I notice less and less.

But, I promise things ARE moving, you just can't tell as much.


Best of luck.

[NeilH]

I think we all went through a period when movement appeared to slow down and stopped but it hadn't, it's just some parts of the journey take longer to achieve. Parts of my treatment were really slow but the final result was so worth all the effort (well I think so!).

[LongJourney]

I'm about to have my 4th adjustment in few weeks and I feel like the whole time nothing moved except for my extraction gap closing little bit but the other gaps haven't even moved. I've been wearing braces since November.

[Felina Grimm]

I felt like my teeth didn't move at all for the first 4 months. The ortho said my teeth were very stubborn. After that, there was a ton of movement. 1.5 years later, and once again I'm in the same spot. Little to no movement.

[tartanhabit]

Ha, I just posted a similar thing. Yes I feel like a lot of progress and movement happened the first say 6 months. Now I'm 9 months into treatment and I feel like at a standstill. I had very crooked teeth, overcrowding and teeth tipping inward so a lot changed quickly but they look very far from straight. The worst part of it all is that my ortho just does not discuss in detail anything. Bad choice on my part. I'd feel more confident about being a plateau if I had more insight about what's next.

Seems like a lot of movement can happen for most people early on, so you're not alone. I have to remind myself too that apart from what I'm actually seeing, there's a lot going on that I'm not seeing, bone regrowth etc for things to settle in place.

I think it's encouraging that you are having xrays - seems like a good sign to me that your doc is keeping track of things. From my understanding, it's a bit like remodeling with a lot of rough work done in the beginning to get teeth close to correct, then bite issue fixing, and then a lot of detailing work. I'm guessing after repositioning brackets you'll get some more detailed movement that could not be achieved in one go.

[Tyrantblade]

Well I actually got the elastics on day one, so it's been bite issue fixing for over 7 months, at first fixing a crossbite; which only took around 2-3 months, and then bringing my canines down after that

I'm still wearing triangles and can't wait until I'm actually done with elastics, I hate the tightness and switching them out so much

Hopefully after my next adjustment a lot more happens because I hate this feeling that nothing has happened in 2 months (even though I'm sure things have been improving)

[AdelaidePsycho]

Went through the exact same thing! The hardest part of braces is accepting that most of important stuff happens without us noticing. Although my overcrowding was my focus, I also have bite issues which we've been working on for the past year. To me, my teeth look great and finished, but I know that fixing my bite is important too. I just wish treating bite issues was as dramatic and exciting as over-crowding!