Can you have a "bad" bracket?

[uncdl]

I went to the orthodontist five weeks ago and they put in a thicker wire. The assistant couldn't get one of the brackets to engage with the wire. The Dr. looked at it and said it would engage in time and it was okay. I waited three weeks and called them because the wire still wasn't engaged with the bracket. The assistant told me they're going to have to remove the bracket at my next appointment because there must be something wrong with it and it must be "bad." So my question is, is the bracket "bad" or just mispositioned? Is it normal to have to remove brackets to reposition them?

[PuppySmiles]

Hmmmm. Sounds fishy to me, but I'm not an orthodontist.

[lilblackdress]

So my question is, is the bracket "bad" or just mispositioned? Is it normal to have to remove brackets to reposition them?

I've had brackets replaced for repositioning. This wasn't because the bracket was "bad" or defective, it was just that the bracket had done all it could do it in its current location. There is no way for an ortho to reposition a bracket without taking it off first since they're bonded to your teeth.

[PuppySmiles]

This is just my personal opinion, but I'd prefer an ortho to just say "we're going to have to reposition this bracket, it could be doing a better job in there" than try to pass it off as a defective bracket.
Not that it's that big a deal I guess.

[uncdl]

I went to the orthodontist today for my scheduled appointment and the Dr. came right over to look at my non engaging bracket. He said that he could try to force the wire to engage with the bracket but that it would hurt or that the bracket might have cement or something in it so it might not go or that it might be defective. I told him rather than being slowed down in my treatment by changing out the bracket, I would take the pain and please try to force it. Well, he tried, it wouldn't go, they took the wire out and scraped through the bracket to see if there was anything in the way. The assistant spent ten minutes trying to get the wire to engage with ONLY that bracket to see if it had a problem and never could get it to go on. SO, I got a new bracket since my original one was defective. They said they'd never seen that before.... I'm a little bit disgusted with the whole process at the moment, but just thought I'd post to say that it really was defective and not bad.

[Betty Bat]

I guess I was in the "bad bracket" club once. When I was in getting my wire changed to a thicker wire, the ortho tech COULD NOT get that darn wire into the bracket, so she called on of the other techs over to try. Well, she couldn't get the wire in either. So they called the ortho over and he couldn't get the wire in either. Bottom line, they changed the bracket. They even tried getting the wire into the recalcitrant bracket after it was taken off. Still couldn't do it. They all decided that it must have been a "bad bracket".

[uncdl]

You know, this still makes me wonder if the changing of the bracket puts you behind in treatment. I've read posts on here where people say that their orthodontists tell them things like, oh if you hadn't eaten that bad food (sticky, crunchy, whatever) and popped off three of your brackets over the course of treatment you would have finished two months earlier. So is it the same principle with the changing of a defective/bad bracket? That it sets you back in treatment? They always change back to the original small round wire when they change out a bracket... Just curious for other opinions.

[Betty Bat]

When my bracket was changed, I got a larger wire - that was the reason that the bracket was changed. And, I've got to believe that it didn't set my treatment back! I will add that I believe that estimating treatment time is an art, not a science. It seems like there are too many variables involved to get anything other than a "rough guess" that's probably accurate to within a month or two, but not anything of finer granularity than that.

[uncdl]

I may be completely wrong, but I was under the impression that as your treatment advanced the thickness of the wire would increase. I really can't say why I have that idea other than they told me that my arch wire would increase during the process of my treatment.

Both times I've had to have a bracket replaced (once was when the assistant broke it and the other time was the defective one right now) they have always had to put the original small round wire that I started out my treatment with back on. To me, it means that I'm having to start over somewhat because it will be another 4-6 weeks before I can change back up and then another 4-6 weeks after that and so on...

Maybe I just don't have a good grasp of what the thickness of the arch wire really means??

[uncdl]

When I questioned why I had the small round starter wire back in my mouth they told me because they had to let the tooth resettle since they couldn't replace the bracket exactly where the old one was. She said they would change me back up in wire size slowly at my next appointments. I asked that question after the first one was replaced.

This time I noticed he put the replacement bracket a good bit higher than where the old one was to the point where I had a curve in my archwire instead of it looking all straight. I asked the assistant if this was going to put me behind and she said no, but I can't help but wonder if they say that so you won't get upset.

It just doesn't make sense to me, starting over with the beginning wire doesn't delay your treatment. I'll just have to wait until I'm done to see if it took longer than the original estimate.