Metal Mouth Message Board

Hi everyone, I'm a 25 year old male who just got lower braces. I had no permanent second bicuspid on the lower left, so I had the small baby tooth and my wisdom teeth removed two years ago. I was told I could live with the gap for a while, but I started to notice the teeth around the gap were tilting toward the open space. After consulting several resources, I decided to get braces to upright the teeth and then pursue an implant if possible or a bridge if necessary.

So, the braces went on yesterday. They are ceramic and look fine, but we also had to install bite turbos on the back of my two upper front teeth to prevent my uppers from hitting the brackets on the lowers. Well, the turbos are doing nothing but making me miserable. I believe they were placed incorrectly because they don't actually hit my lower teeth when I bite (there's at least 2 mm of space) and my upper canines still hit my brackets if I bite too deeply.

Honestly, I feel like I don't need the turbos because they're not working and I haven't had any problem stopping myself from hitting the brackets. So I have two questions:

- how receptive would most orthodontists be to a patient's request to have bite turbos removed?

- is it true that with only a mild overbite I probably wouldn't have needed bite turbos if I had gotten metal brackets rather than ceramics?

Thanks for any input

I'm scheduled for braces on 2/1/07 and I'll be getting bite turbos. The orthodontic assistant at the office I'm going to said that it usually takes a full two weeks to get used to the bite turbos.

That being said, if you think they're placed wrong, by all means ask about it. I would be surprised if the ortho would take them off right away. You need them for a reason, right?

Good luck!!

I would call and ask if you could come back in and have them take a look.

Best wishes to you in your treatment!

I had bite turbos . My bottom teeth hit the turbos and my top teeth were completely prevented from hitting my bottom brackets. When mine were first put on my ortho had to adjust them a bit. But he made sure they were in the correct position before I left the office. I would definitely talk to your ortho if your top teeth are hitting your bottom brackets.

And yes, they do take a while to get used to. At first I thought that I would never get accustomed to them, but I was able to eat fairly normally in about a week. I learned to chew by rotating my jaw since I molars would not otherwise touch.

I had them off in just over fours months and I was very glad to see them go! They were not a bad as I feared, but it is definitely much nicer not to have them.

Are the turbos metal?I would like to have them plastic or somethingsofter so they didn't chip the teeth.

Kat: My turbos were a composite material rather than metal. I had no problems with chipped teeth.