Metal Mouth Message Board

That is a big shift from where they were. How annoying. I would not be happy with that result, to be brutally honest. Have you considered going for a second opinion on what can/should be done?

Chaplains Assistant wrote:ArchWired 28 - They took my top brackets off to reposition them rather than bend the wires.

Thanks everyone for your opionions. Here is a before pic. My midline was off some to start with but nothing like it is now and I don't care if Tom Cruises' midline is off an entire tooth it's not his mouth I'm concerned with after paying $5900 for my teeth to be fixed.

My TMJ is doing better so my bite is probably right now but to sacrifice the midline as far off as it is - really isn't acceptable to me but not willing to pay another $1200-$1800 for another 1 to 1.5 years of braces.

WoW, honestly, your "before" looks like after to me, and vice versa. If I did not know, I would have been sure your first pic is prior to the start of treatment. I am curious to know if you ask your ortho, would he have been pleased with a similar result if it was HIS mouth?
At least they made your bite right and your TMJD has improved. I am myself in braces to treat TMJD, but I don't know if I would like to have midline that much off - even in exchange for being pain-free. It would have required a lot, and I mean A LOT of effort from me to accept that result as is.
It is also shocking to me that your ortho wants that much money to have the teeth pulled and even out the midline. In my case, I was under the impression that I pay (a little less than you but a lot of money nonetheless) a certain sum and they work with me as much as needed until we are both satisfied. But this is just wow. I am not even sure if you can do anything about it. Heck, what do I do if my ortho does something similar to me??? Sorry, I am not very helpful. I am wishing you the best and please keep us posted!

Archwired - The extra cost is not for him to pull the teeth I would have to go to my general dentist. The extra cost is to extend treatment since I would be choosing to have the teeth pulled.

I had been asking for many moths if my midline was going to get better and he said yes so i didn't worry. But now that he says we are almost done "I said with my midline so far off" he replied it won't get much better without extractions. I was so mad I saw red. The tech did tell me to keep after him and get more firm/mad so he will do the work without the additional cost.

My husband and I have been talking more since reading the replies from here and are to the point of going ahead with the 2 extractions (because I can't live with that big of a shift) but trying to make sure ortho doesn't make us pay the addtional money.

I reattached photos so they are on the same post for compairison.

I PM'd you yesterday. The message is still unopened in your inbox.

So I have a second opinion scheduled for tomorrow morning. Let's hope he thinks he can do something without pulling teeth to fix my midline. Will post after my appointment at 9 in the morning.

So I went for my second opinion this morning and this guy explained everything perfectly to me. My regular ortho pulled the upper left #4 because I was missing a lower tooth (from the my Army days) - so he was trying to get my bite correct since everything had shifted on the bottom to the left. He suggested that my ortho was fixated on my TMJ rather than on the entire picture of my teeth.

He said my midline shift is 5mm off and that isn't acceptable to him (or me either). He said in order to fix that he would suggest pulling and upper and lower bicuspid on the right side - which is what my ortho wanted to do. So they agree on what needs to happen to fix my midline shift. He did tell me to talk to my ortho and let him know that it isn't my fault that this happened and that I shouldn't have to pay the extra. He said if he had done that he wouldn't expect me to pay more. I asked when does he charge more than the inital cost that they tell us - he said only when people are non-compliant and it makes them go past the original treatment time.

So I go back to my ortho on the 14th and we are going to have a long talk about getting my 2 teeth pulled and that I am not going to pay the extra cost due to his neglagance. I will post again when I know more.

Way to go! Hopefully this works out for you and you won't need to pay for this.

Chaplains Assistant,

I am glad to hear your second opinion went well. I absolutely agree that you should not have to pay any extra to have your treatment completed to a satisfactory result.

Even if your ortho agrees to complete the treatment after extractions at no additional cost, do you trust him/her to do a good job after the work done to date and will you have a workable relationship if the ortho has the perception that they are doing the additional treatment unpaid? I hope the answer to these questions is "yes".

If it is not or if your ortho insists on additional payment, you should consider going to another orthodontist to complete your treatment and issuing legal proceedings against your first orthodontist to recover the new orthodontist's fees plus damages for causing you to have unnecessary additional time in braces.

Best of luck

Jem



Best of luck whatever

:: Sorry you'll have to go through this for yet another long period of time! I'm glad you got another ortho to back you up though.

Jem - I think my ortho is a good one he just fixated on only fixing my TMJ and didn't consider I wouldn't be happy with my midline shifted so far to the left.

I called my regular dentist today (who recommended my ortho because he did her braces) and she is going to talk to him about doing the additional treatment without the extra cost.

I am not looking forward to another 12-18 months of treatment but I will do whatever it takes to have my midline shifted.

Too bad about the extra time. However, I'm sure your dentist will talk him into not charging you. Since your dentist was treated by him, I'm sure she is a big referral base for him. If he still decides to charge you, he's probably gonna lose a referral stream.

C A ,

Great idea to get your dentist to mediate this and good points in your favour made by Aquarian Dragon. Hopefully it will now be resolved.

Sorry that you have to undergo prolonged treatment but that is far better than having a poor outcome after all your treatment and fees to date and probably eventually deciding on another round of braces some time in the future.

Jem

So my next ortho appt is Monday at 2:00. My dentist did speak to Dr. Dorsch and they were supposed to contact me but of course they haven't. Bet they are hoping I'll go away. Going to call to follow-up with them today so I know the game plan before I show up Monday afternoon.

I called my orthos office and conveniently he is out of the office this week. How frustrating is that

Will update Monday.

Well I went to my ortho appt today and he said he could send me to get the upper and lower bicuspids on my right side extracted but he's affraid that it wouldn't fix the problem as my bone on the bottom may get damaged and the gap may not close on the top either. He said my lower jaw was always off center line and the only way to truley fix my shifted midline is to have jaw surgery breaking both the upper and lower jaws.

With all that and he showed me how it could make things worse by losing bone etc. I chose not to bother with trying to fix my midline. it is going tobe very hard to see this much of a shift everyday of the rest of my life but I guess eventually I will adjust. it just sucks that he couldn't have told me this when I first started because I would have just left my teeth the way they were - crowded and narrow but at least my midline looked normal. Very upset at this outcome but I can't justify having my jaws broken to fix my midline.

Ugh. That sucks big time.

Could the issue be addressed with some cosmetic dentistry? It would be less drastic than having your jaw broken.