Metal Mouth Message Board

Hi everyone,

I just got braced on my bottoms today, been about 4 hours now and i'm beginning to feel the pressure! I have 2 extractions on either side (molars) and my ortho put a metal ring around each of my molars (next to the extractions). The metal covers my entire tooth! Has anyone had this before?

I am guessing it has something to do with moving them closer to close out the gaps. However, i have never read anything about this on here. Normally i see those powerchains! It feels very strange when i roll my tongue over it!

Any feedback would be most welcome!

I think the majority of us have some evil molar bands. I don't know why, but maybe it is because they are stronger than a bracket glued onto the tooth. I still cut my tongue on mine sometimes.

My ortho put the metal bands around all of my crowns, glued the regular brackets on all my other teeth. He said the bands are used to protect the crowns from damage. I've got some friction sores on my tongue from hitting the back of the bands, also.

Jembrace

The metal bands are put around molars that either have crowns or have fillings on the outside where a bracket would go. The bracket glue doesn't stick to the crowns or fillings so that's why they do bands.

I've had 4 banded molars for almost a year now & they feel just fine. I take extra care to clean the lower part of each tooth between the band and gumline so it's a bit more work than cleaning around the brackets.

Good luck with yours.

Some ortho's just use band instead of brackets on molars. Don't know why. My 3 kids all had bands and none of them had fillings or anything else that would make brackets less successful.

To each his own I suppose.

Hope they feel better for you SOON!!!

Jenn

I have bands on my rear most molars on my top with brackets on the next set. On the bottom its reversed with brackets in the rear and bands on the set in front of those. Of course all things are subject to change.

Mike

i have 4 bands, one on each 1st molar. i have heard that they put bands on molars because u usually chew all the hard stuff on molars and molar bands are less likely to be damaged than regular brackets.

Michelle

The glue does stick to fillings and i'm living proof of that. I have molar bands on my 6 yr old molars. However, i have a tooth on my upper teeth that is 90% filling and i have a bracket glued on to it. So it does stick using the same glue he glued the rest on with.

I do have to admit though, i'm very nervous about having my bands removed even though its 14 months away especially the above referenced tooth. He can not crank down on that tooth due to it being fragile. Which i'm still wondering why he didn't band that tooth. Oh well. That tooth is supposed to get a crown after my braces are removed.

I have 16 crowns with a mixture of ceramic and gold. I have only 1 band which is on a bottom molar which bracket had fell off due to the tops hitting on them. I've had a total of 6 brackets fall off. The ortho simply reglued them all back on with exception of the one with the band. None have fallen off since my teeth have quit hitting each other .

Welcome to the world of Bands, in this case, Molar bands.

Normal brackets, by desing, have a finite bond strength with the tooth. (If not, they'd never come off ) The band gives the ortho a stronger platform to work from when they need to apply additional forces or need a strong foundation. As other posters have mentioned the bands are also used where a normal bracket would not be bondable.

Molars, having the longest root of all the teeth, provide the best anchor for the ortho to work from when applying pressure to teeth or where he needs stability.

In your case you have bands on your molars although bands can be placed around all teeth. I had 4 top and 6 bottom bands during my treatment to close gaps and rotate teeth.

In the bad old days of orthodontics, before the advent of modern cements, bands were placed on each and every tooth. NICE!