Metal Mouth Message Board

calypsojunky wrote:When people refer to wires as being "square", do they mean the cross section of the wire is square, or the shape that the wire is bent into?

The wire will always be a sort of half-circle shape from end to end. What I mean by "square" is the cross-section. As the wires get heavier, they are progressively less round than the lighter wires and eventually become completely square. This allows the wire to exert more tension on the teeth because the wire fits tighter into the bracket doors, thus creating more pressure. When you look closely, the insides of the Damon brackets are square. So it's literally a case of going from fitting a round "peg" in a square hole to eventually fitting a square "peg" in a square hole. That extra little pocket of space created by using a round wire inside a square bracket creates less pressure. Hope that helps!

Saw Dr. Damon yesterday and asked the question to him as why the wire isn't through my back molars as well.. The answer I got was that this first thin wire is not designed to moved the teeth from their position but rather to rotate them where they currently are and the thinner wire tends to fall out of the back molar so they just don't put it through but the next step is a thicker wire and it will be through the back molars and the widening process will begin.

That's really odd, my orthodontist told me the exact opposite. He said the thin wire is supposed to widen my arch, and then heavier wires do the rest.
This makes me more nervous that he still isn't very familiar with Damons yet.

This web site has an awesome description of what the different wires do, for damons at least:

http://www.ormco.com/damon/inTheClinic/ ... cing01.cfm

great link jcdamon3 - thanks for posting!

Thanks for all your advice.
I'll post back after my first adjustment.

So, just to illustrate some of my concerns with my teeth, and to show my progress so far, here are some pictures.



You can see the crowding, and the rotated front teeth in that picture. It'd seem that braces would cause a notable change in a couple of months.

BUT:



The brackets are attached so close to the midline that the wire is not bent. From previous posting so far, I've gotten the idea that if the wire is bent, it means it's working, and since my wire is not, i assume that not much torque is being exerted on each tooth.
Does that make sense?
So anyway, it's been two months, and these are the before and after pictures. Maybe I'm just not seeing as much improvement since I stare at them all the time. Any third party opinions?


1 month


2 months, 1 adjustment later

I see some difference in the incisors next to the front teeth, but the front teeth themselves look exactly the same.

I do see some progress.

Also regarding the lower tooth. I can see it is rotated. Mine were very much like that and I always wondered how it could turn around. It took a long time but it did. There may be some more slight rotation on mine that has to happen but I am not even in my last wire yet. With each progressive wire it will get better and better. You just can't rush thing - trust me.

Sorry, I didn't specify that the 2nd picture of the teeth is actually of my upper arch.
but yeah, the rotation is a little discouraging, but I'll keep hoping!

Check out my photo below - I have a twist that's taking it's sweet time too. But I can see it moving as my arch gets wider and there's space for it to un-twist into. I'm at 5 1/2 months in Damons.

JoeMama!

Hopefully on the ones with the tongue in the picture you mean lowers!

My lowers looked JUST LIKE YOURS!

They are mostly straight now after 1 year. I had to have a spring though for awhile because they were so bad they couldn't get a bracket on at first.

Anyway, there is still one tooth that needs to swing just a little and I think once I get my last wire on it will straighten itself out. Really you can't even see now what I am talking about it is that subtle.

Right now we are trying to overcorrect to fix leveling on the lower arch.

Yep - the "tongue" shots are lowers. That's great news jcdamon3! Thanks for sharing.

This was the first time I had actually taken comparison photos and put them side by side. The difference was encouraging to see. You don't notice all that's going on from looking at yourself in the mirror.

Thanks for the info!

Hey JoeMama,

thanks for the pictures! It really just helps a lot to see someone else in a similar situation further along than me.
Good luck, and I'll keep waiting.

Hey friends,

I just wanted to include a few pictures on my progress. I posted a couple of months ago about how slow i felt my teeth were moving compared to other damon3 wearers. I went for my second adjustment recently, and the orthodontist moved me up to a rectangular wire. Yay!
this time, I definitely saw a lot more movement. My two front teeth finally peeled themselves away from each other, and i'm beginning to get a little bit more space to floss in between them. This is a good sign.
I also realized that my two front teeth are not very even. Not just because of the little chip, but there is an actual gradient from higher to lower from the middle out. Originally I thought this was an illusion due to the rotation of the two front teeth, but i guess not. No worries, my orthodontist said he'd be able to do some "enamel-plasty" when my treatment ends.
Other than that, I'm still just looking forward to my arch expanding enough so that my front teeth don't flair out anymore. Also, it feels like I'm developing a little bit of an overbite. Hopefully, that will work itself out eventually as well.

First Month:


Second Month:


Third Month:


Fourth Month:

awesome progress!!!