Metal Mouth Message Board

I hear stuff about Molar bands. I looked it up and I don't have that. My ortho glued a bracket on the back tooth and thats the anchor? What is the difference between what I have and having a molar band?

ps. please excuse the food in tooth/bracket. I just ate dinner then took the pic..

Cool! I was happy they didn't have to put the band around my tooth but I didn't ask why? Or if one was better then another? I will be getting elastics I know that much. My teeth are feeling a bit loose lately. No pain though. My bite is all consentrated on the right side right now which is wierd and right side is looser. LOTS OF MOVEMENT goin on!

P.s. The camara is AWESOME. Got it as a Christmas gift from mom and dad and it takes the best close up shots. Im just learning how to take pics of my own teeth via looking at a mirror and looking at the little screen in the mirror so I know exactly what Im taking a picture of. It's a canon power shot or something like that.

I concur - nice pic. I get hubby to take mine

The use of molar bands vs direct bonded tubes depends partly on the preference of the ortho and partly on other factors. If a tooth is heavily filled or crowned then they will often use a band because it spreads the load more. Likewise for certain treatments the patient will need bands as opposed to directly bonded tubes (if they need to wear a Nance or TPA for instance)

I've got bands on my 1st molars (because of the Nance) and bonded tubes on my second molars, but I think if anything I prefer the band. It doesn't feel so rough on my tongue.

I had my braces put on Tuesday and I HATE THOSE MOLAR BANDS!!! They've been scraping my tongue raw.

I had a bracket fall off my first day, so when I went to have that fixed the 2nd day, my ortho went and ground down the metal cleats on the bands (on the tongue side) but he only did that on the lower molars.

It felt like heaven at first - finally! My tongue fits in my mouth! But by the end of the day, my tongue was even worse; it appears the top ones have been doing the most damage.

Now I'm in day 5 and my tongue is in agony. Eating is the worst, because my tongue hits those lingual cleats every time I swallow. I've been waxing them, but I'm finding it hard to get the wax to stick up there, and eating tends to knock it out of place anyway. (Since that's where I do most of my chewing.)

Anyway, does anyone have any advice? I've been rinsing with diluted peroxide or salt water a few times a day and taking some ibuprofen.

Sorry for the long post, but this has been making me miserable. Do I even need those cleats on the inside? What are they for?

I need to learn to ask more questions when I'm in the chair - but they make it so hard with all the stuff they stick in your mouth!!

Thanks so much for your advice, Meryaten! I will call the ortho on Tuesday. (Long weekend and all...)

In the meantime, I will keep up with the rinsing and waxing, and I just discovered that, horrible as it tastes, Anbesol makes my tongue tolerable for a little while. I will have to see how it works while I eat.

i had cleats on my molors also, however mine were bonded to the tooth not a molorband an they kill your tounge, i ask my orthodontist to grind mine off an replace them with a button, they are GREAT , he ask how did you know about bottons , i said reserched the net , then he said i was the only one in about ten years that needed them , GO FIGGER,hope it heals soon , have a great evening,

Kinda on the same subject but why is it on the 2nd to last molar? Isnt that going to spread my back molars away from the rest of my teeth?

My ortho never said anything about putting the brackets on the back molar but I will ask when I go in for my first adjustment.

i have two molar bands on my top molars and they are for holding my tpa, so that my molars couldn`t come towards my front teeth.