Metal Mouth Message Board

These are comparison pictures from December 2006 when i was 3 months/ to June 2007 (Now).

Me biting down in December 2006- 3 Months into treatment

Me biting down now- June 2007- 9 months into treatment



My wayward tooth back in December:

My wayward tooth now-June 2007


My upper set in December:

My upper set now-June:


My bite from the left in December 2006:

My bite from the left now:


Upper arch and lower arch in december:


My upper arch and lower arch now:

Thanks kiwi. Its good to hear you think there has been some progress...Its great to get an outside perspective as until looking at past pictures, my teeth don't look or seem any different to me.

Thanks again Kiwi.

Newmetal

Is there anyone else who could leave me some feedback?

Many Thanks

Newmetal

It looks like your bite has come along heaps and your extraction gaps are closing nicely. stick with it and im sure you'll have a lovely smile at the end of it.

Dark_angel wrote:It looks like your bite has come along heaps and your extraction gaps are closing nicely. stick with it and im sure you'll have a lovely smile at the end of it.

Thanks for the response Dark_angel. Its refreshing to hear that another forumer can see a change in my bite. When being braced you tend to look at your own teeth non stop, and ive found that in doing that i cannot see the changes in the mirror. Although, looking at the top pictures of my bite in December when my front teeth were not even touching when i bit down, to now where there is a slight overlap, i can see my ortho has done a great job so far...9 months in.

Thanks again,

Newmetal

Hi there Newmetal,

There's been loads of improvement in your teeth over the 9 months, they look really great now. You can't be far from finished from what I can see.

How did your ortho close your gaps on your lower arch? They have closed up really well. I have the same problem, and my ortho is using elastics and two mini-screws on the left-hand side and just elastics on the right. Strangely, the left hand side is not making much progress. I hope my gaps close up as good as yours have.

macca wrote:Hi there Newmetal,

There's been loads of improvement in your teeth over the 9 months, they look really great now. You can't be far from finished from what I can see.

How did your ortho close your gaps on your lower arch? They have closed up really well. I have the same problem, and my ortho is using elastics and two mini-screws on the left-hand side and just elastics on the right. Strangely, the left hand side is not making much progress. I hope my gaps close up as good as yours have.

Alrite macca,

I hope im not far from the finish line but because of my left hand bite i reckon ive still got a while to go yet. My gaps were closed using powerchains, on the upper and lower arches. Like you the gap on the left hand side, lower arch, is taking longer to close for some reason, and it doesn't show much sign of movement. The gap closed quite a bit but it seemed to have peaked and does'nt want to move any further. How long have you had the elastics on trying to close your extraction gaps? Because, i found the gaps started to close after about being in powerchains for two months, then there started to be movement. Its one of those things that takes some warming up but when they start, they get going.

Hope this has helped mate.

Newmetal

Hi there Newmetal,

Thanks for the advice, much appreciated. I've being going with the elastics for about 4 months now. On each side I've got one elastic that runs from my molars across the gaps and hooks onto a lower canine, then another from my molar to a hook on my upper canine. They can be a bit of a nuisance sometimes, but whatever it takes to get there I guess.

My ortho might also use powerchains soon I guess, maybe he'll use them to finish up once the gaps are smaller. With the lack of progress on the left gap though my only worry is that he might get ideas about introducing more intrusive devices at some point to get the job done. Don't particularly want more metal in there!

One thing I've noticed, is that while the molars are moving forward to close the gap, they also seem to be moving inwards which is making my lower arch narrower. Have you had a similar experience when closing your gaps? I'll have to ask the ortho at my next appointment what can be done about it. It does seem as though they will need moving out again once the gaps are closed.

All the best.

Yea my bottom arch got narrower when the powerchains kicked in to close the gaps.But, with the upper arch the ortho has managed to keep it as wide as it was before the extractions, i don't know if this was intentional. I reckon once your extraction gaps get closing they will seem like they are closing overnight.


Newmetal