Metal Mouth Message Board

Hey, thought I'd stop back in here and post a little update.

My braces have been taken off. The tops were debanded on April 24th, and the bottoms this past Monday. I received a Hawley retainer for the upper arch, and a bonded for the lower arch.

My teeth look a lot better now than what they were in the beginning. But, I do have a problem. After removing the upper arch the Dr. shaped my front teeth a little to remove some ridges.

After removing the lower arch the Dr. wasn't going to do any shaping to the teeth. I really did not like the way the teeth looked so,I had the assistant call the ortho back over. I explained what I would have liked done, which was shape the teeth so they looked uniform. Well, he shaped two and sent me on my way.

What do you guys think of the shapes of my lower arch? Should I go back and ask for him to shape them, or should I go to my dentist for this? Please be honest! criticism is not going to hurt!


Lower Before


Lower After


Upper Before


Upper After

Wow! Congratulations! Your teeth look really great. Bet it makes almost two years behind bars worth it!

Hey you look great! Congrats... I do think that the lowers could be evened out more too. I wouldnt worry too much about it though smile wide and be proud you look great!

Thanks guys. I know one of the reasons he was hesitant to work on the bottoms is because one (I don't know names or numbers) of the teeth is "capped", so as he put it "doesn't want it to explode". That I can understand, as it is not his tooth (work), but all the others to me, should have been done.

Overall, I am pleased with the results. I just wish the bottoms would look as decent as the tops. I mean after all, I did spend $4,500 and nearly two years for this! What's an extra 10 to 15 minutes of his time?

The tooth that is capped is the right central. And I noticed that the left central seems to be giving the most noticeable problem. If you look closely at the before and after pictures, you can see that he did try to shape that tooth. I think he gave up though because it was right next to the capped one.

When you say tweak do you just mean shaping the tooth or do you have something else in mind?

I find it funny that, out of all the lower teeth the one that seemed to look the best at the beginning, is now the tooth that is making the whole arch look bad (at least in my eyes).

Meryaten wrote:Why don't you see how you feel about it over the ensuing weeks, and if you're still not happy by the time you go in for your retainer check, push him on the issue some more?

Oh, I know I am going to be asking about this the next time I go back in early July. But before then I will have a cleaning with the dentist who capped the tooth for me. I am probably going to have a new cap put on so that it is level, and hopefully that left central can come down enough so it is level with the others.

If my dentist doesn't want to shape all the teeth, I might just have him take the cap off for a day or two and go visit the ortho. That way the ortho can do his magic without fear of damaging the cap. Then I will go back to the dentist, and he can make a new one to fit. (Hope all that made sense.)

You should be happy with the results

Looks great Jimmy

Jimmy I wouldn't worry about this for a second. Go to your regular dentists off and let him shape them for you. I had a capped tooth shaved and it's great!!! He can also straighten up any loose ends in this area for you. If he can't do it you have the wrong dentist anyway, go to another dentist. I would do it for sure and be happy with the end results. They do it all the time.

Thanks for the compliments guys, although I don't see how you would be happy with my lower arch's result.

Your smile looks great!!! I think with just a little bit of shaping, you would be much happier with your lower arch. My lower arch isn't perfect because of uneven teeth wear and I asked my ortho about it before debanding. He assured me that after he did some shaping, my lower arch would look better. He was right. My lower arch definitely isn't as level as my upper, but the shaping really helped my lowers look better.

Chris

Thanks for the reply. I know shaping would probably make a lot of difference, but the problem is he already "did" the shaping. Hopefully I can convince him otherwise when I go back in for my retainer check.