Metal Mouth Message Board

Hallo,
I almost finished my orthodontic nightmare. My Orthodontist recommended extracting 4 teeth, which I did. As consequence I turned from a beautiful woman with a nice and smooth face, to a woman with a sunken in face. People ask me all the time if I'm ill. My face fell completely in. So far I had many sleepless nights. I'm so deeply devastated that this has happened to me. All I wanted was to lock beautiful. Now I have beautiful straigth teeth, but my face developed very deep folds and extremely deep dimples going all around my mouth. I spend so far many nights sleepless in self punishment. I had to go to the hospital. I stopped working and I stopped my school, because I'm afraid to look people in the eyes. I'm on medication, which drugged and slugged me out. I did go to several other orthodontist, who told me those teeth's should have never been extracted. My teeth got moved to far back, what let the soft-tissue destroy and does not give support for the mouth mucsles. I was beautiful before. Past, the new me I can and will not accept. My Ortho has to move my teeth back outward and then I have to get implants, my side profile looks awful. My Ortho does not admit that he made a mistake, and tells me that Ilook fine to him. Now, to fix the problem to some little extent will be very time consuming and expensive. I'm really on the end of my life. My self esteem, my happiness is gone. I need emotional counseling, but this is not doable. Please someone help me.

I went to the oral surgeon for counsultation, but unfortunately he is not able to place implants because the space opened up would be no more than 5mm on each side. My dentist recommended to place crowns on the surrounding teeth, but I would need several root-canals which I can not financially afford. Do you think that if I leave several open spaces that I could the teeth hold in place if I wear invisiline to the end of my life, at night. My orthodontist tells me even if I wear invisiline my teeth will move and that I could loose them.

I'm still very in distress, and I have problems to adjust to the situation. Everybody thinks that my orthodontist is responsible than he clearly made a miscalculation.

One week later, I'm back at my Ortho's office, He tells me that he wants me to wear a headgear, but can it rally move out my teeth. and if by how many mm. The problem is my teeth did not allign yet, and I'm affraid even to loose more teeth.

What should I do, awaiting your advice
Kathy

Kathy, I'm so sorry to hear about your situation. I don't have any expert advice for you, but I want you to know that you have my sympathy.

If your ortho is trying to address the problem, that must mean that s/he accepts some kind of responsibility for what has happened. I wonder if I were given improper treatment and my teeth were moved too far back--with the effects you describe--whether legal action might not be in order. But I've never sued anyone and am ignorant of what's involved. Anyone?

You might get responses slowly, given that it's Christmas Eve. But I feel sure that some members of this board will have advice for you.

I understand where you're at. I'm braced for the second time due to ortho work when I was in my late teens-early twenties when I had four premolars extracted. The result is much like you describe. You may want to read my blog.

Implants would be as expensive as crowns if not more expensive. A 5 mm space is too small for implants. 6.5 mm seems the minimum space with 8 mm preferred. I don't understand why you'd need root canals to have crowns placed.

If your ortho is suggesting headgear (unless its reverse pull) it would only serve to pull your molars back further creating more space for implants but not pulling your teeth forward to reverse your "sunken face" look. If the results are as dire as you say, GET A SECOND OPINION as soon as possible. If I trusted the oral surgeon, I'd ask for a recommendation. If your dentist didn't refer you to your ortho, I'd ask him. Either way, you need some expert advice before you do anything else.

As for legal action, after your second opinion consults, you may want to consider it. Before you do, look at any notes you have from your pre braces consult. Was surgery recommended and you chose this route instead? Where you warned of possible results of the extractions? Any warning or failure on your part to follow your ortho's recommendations will result in your legal case not being a success.

I wish I could be more positive, but based upon your description, I can't.

Mike

Kathy,

I havnt had extractions to my teeth but braces is turning into a nightmare with me too. I thought i was the only one going through this problems with the orthodontist.
I havnt had extractions. But somehow my teeth is looking soo much worse then before. My face look sunken in also. I get soo depressed about this.
I looked soo much better before i had braces then now and i really wish i didnt go ahead to do it. I had only a very mild overbite. Im 14 months into treatment but i thought my case was simple but there has been soo many stuff ups.
THe annoying thing is that if you point things out to your orthodontist they get annoyed with you and act all defensive. They act like what do you know? The only person that is best to judge whether there is negative impact is you cause you see your face everyday and you know what it looks like. Orthodontist are very good at denying that there is no adverse changes. What if they do stuff up what do you do then? Im always feeling quite disturbed and depressed about thsi whole thing. People always say that it would get better before it gets worse. Lets hope so.


I really believe that if you see such adverse changes you really need to get legal advice to see what you can do. Im sure there can be stuff ups with Orthodonist. They need to be accountable for what they did to you.

You need to get angry and you need to stand your ground. I believe we patients have every right to get upset with bad results. Does anyone in this forum know what to do if orthodontic treatment causes adverse facial changes.


Kim

Oh dear, what a bad experience you have. I so wish I could help. I think too that
sometimes orthos do recommend to extract when it would have been better not to.
I think you can set a few steps. The first one has to do with yourself. No, it is not
your fault at all. So, please, don't punish yourself. Don't be afraid to look people in
the eyes. Most ones have no clue what is going on and can't or will not notice. Try
to bend this energy you spend into this negativism into positive energy to be able
to fight this. Believe me, I really know what I am talking about. I now see a third
ortho, who is trying to correct all the mishaps done by my first 2 orthos. I really
do believe you are right when you say you are not happy about your profile. Your
ortho maybe tells you everything is ok, but I think he knows he did wrong. Why
would he advice you to wear this headgear then ? I do not believe this story about
losing your teeth either. One quick check of your teeth and an X-ray and he would
have some more medical ground to proof this. If your teeth look ok and the roots are
still ok, then you will not lose them so quickly. I think he tells you that to avoid that
he has to do something about this. What you can do now is this. You can see these
other orthos again and ask what they would do to get things better. You should ask
in great detail about their plans. When you feel good about one other ortho, you
could simply go to him/her. Not an easy decision, but it is doable. I did it even twice
now. But first see those orthos. Try to know as much as you can. Then you will be
able to decide. There are still ways to improve this. But you should try to go for
a good and lasting solution. This invisalign idea is not a good one. Making space for
implants or moving the arches are. Maybe you can post a pic of your profile. If you
do not like this to make it public, you could remove the pic after some days.
Best of luck.

Yes, Meryaten is right that you shouldn't hesitate to seek support from all possible sources.

I wanted to mention that I found a website

http://www.orthodontic-outrage.com/extractions.html

that might have some information about poor results from extractions and legal remedies. It's actually about England, but it might apply in some ways to the United States, too.

Kathy, I'm so sorry. I googled it, and up came something from this website. This story seems to be somewhat similar, if that helps:
http://www.archwired.com/TOW_extraction ... n_face.htm

You should defenetely get in touch with a good lawyer, and sue. I understand this must be such a nightmare for you. It truely scares me, to be honest.
Take care, if you need to talk you can always PM me, seriously:)

- Mona

Hi, I just read your story and I am so sorry. I am also a 34 year old woman suffering from the terrible consequences of terrible dentistry. for me it was a periodontist who did perio surgery on me that disfigured and cut away a bunch of bone and gum.
It sent me into a deep depression which is only now starting to lift.
I recommend a trip to Jamaica with a loved one!
Seriously, it gave me perspective and a lot of joy again.

Your ortho is 100% responsible, as was my awful perio.
But now it is up to us to figure out the physical healing, which for you sounds like implants in the sunken area, or atleast a bridge maybe.

Find the best dentists you can.
Where in California are you?
I know some great dentists in Souther California I could recommend.

And the mental emotional healing- learn to find the hope, and the strength from difficult situations.
Find joy, positive thinking again.
Tell yourself,
I will find a way to be well and beautiful again.
You will.
And you will find life and joy again.
Give it your all.

sorry to hear about your facial changes. I guess that this is always a risk when undergoing orthodontic treatment. However, any changes in most cases (so I have been told) will only be minor and hardly noticeable to others. Sometimes as apparantly in your case the facial changes are noticeable. Do you have before and after pictures?

I hope that the issue will be sorted out for you within the not so distant future!

Danish

Hi Kathy,
I am a lawyer and can help you with questions on legal issues. Does the US or your state have a professional society or institute of maxillofacial surgeons or the like? - take it beyond the orthodontists profession to get better impartiality and overcome the problem of professionals not liking to criticise others in the same profession. If so, you could contact them and ask their advice as to where you could get a totally independent assessment of your ortho work. I am not sure how much this will cost you but this is the minimum you will need to pursue the matter formally through the courts - the profession may have an arbitration procedure you could use, which would be less scary/costly. It would also make you feel alot better if the report did determine innappropriate treatment - it doesnt change what you have but validates your complaint - sometimes the fact that no one is listening/taking you seriously makes a bad situation worse.

I have to say that I too am worried about sunken face. I am 47 yrs old and have a class II overbite and the ortho is intending to take my top teeth back to meet the bottom. The arch will be rounder but the front incisors will be coming back almost 1cm. I got my husband to take pics of me from the side and I think this is not going to look good. I also had 2 small premolars out on the bottom to straighten my bottom teeth so my bottom teeth may be moved a little further back, possibly making the distance for the top teeth to travel back greater.



My ortho is a specialist with a sole practice, so he sees all his patients with no assistant. As a result he doesnt really invite questions, sort of expecting you to respect that he knows what hes doing, which is why you went to him in the first place. Well at my next appointment I am going to be asking!!

This process is very hard as you have to wait a long time to see the end result and if you dont like it its not easy to change like a bad haircut/colour. Get an independent exam first which, if it does find fault, should also detail how to correct, which will give you a clearer idea of what you are facing.

Kathy, don't give up.

I too was a victim of uneccessary extractions and lousy orthodontics as a kid. Luckily I only had two teeth removed. My parents and I decided to stop treatment before any more teeth were taken. After three years of treatment, it was pretty obvious that there was little, if any, progress.

In my late twenties I started looking into ortho treatment again. I was very lucky that I found an orthodontist who has the skills to fix this mess I brought to him. And he has even done so without the need for implants/bridges. I have been in treatment for almost two and a half years and the difference is incredible. I can assure you, there are orthos out there who are caring and competent; you just have to find one.

Something to keep in mind - this is for Britlaw too - your ortho is restricted in what he can do based on your skeletal structure. He has to ensure that your teeth are going to be stable and healthy. You definitely don't want to be in a situation where your teeth look good cosmetically, but there are underlying problems with your bite.

Britlaw, you should definitely chat with your ortho. Don't be intimidated.

In Canada, we also have to get that passport endorsement. It is such a pain!

Sorry I can't help. But I feel your pain. I am 16 months into the treatment. I got facial nerve paralysis and TMJ issues along the way. I didn't get the teeth extracted as was told by the orthodontist. However, I already got sunken face because he narrowed my arch significantly. My teeth were all squeezed together that it is hard to use a regular floss.

I consulted three orthos and sadly found that he couldn't be said to have done something "wrong". I am getting a reputable orthodontist and he will try to expand my arch back a little bit. It would cost me extra $2000+. He said it may work or may not work.

One thing that I have learned is that God made us special for a reason. What we should do is to accept ourselves, love our smiles. I had no issue with my teeth before the treatment other than cosmetic reasons.