Metal Mouth Message Board

I had my braces fitted last December - I believe I may have already posted about it here before but it was an atrociously bad experience with a short tempered trainee who is now my regular ortho who I'm seeing every 6 weeks for adjustments.

Thing is how do I know if she's actually doing it right? - my younger brother recently had braces fitted and I'm noticing two very different ways of working first hand, every time I'm going back for a tightening I am having the wire cut and removed and then fitted with a new wire, this is incredibly painful as she consistently applies pressure to my bottom front teeth, one singular tooth is isolated so when she presses down I can actually feel it moving under her hand.

My brothers ortho just tightens the existing wire and he's back up out of the chair in less than ten minutes, the time its taking at appointments isn't what's bothering me, it's the feeling that she isn't doing the job properly and although she's meant to be being evaluated by someone who does know what they're doing this just isn't happening.

I assumed this was just how painful it was meant to be as I have nothing else to judge my treatment against, but seeing how little pain my brother is in after his treatments leaves me concerned I'm not being treated properly, I'm awaiting jaw realignment surgery next year on the NHS and being treated in this hospital is my only option for treatment at all as there is no way I could afford to pay for it, for those reasons alone I haven't complained, but I'm starting to be afraid of going back for my 6 weeks tightening appointments as I know she'll cut me.

at my last appointment she put so much pressure on my front tooth she slipped and stabbed me in the jaw, twice now she's rested the edge of one of her instruments hard enough along the inside of my lip for my lip to stick and rip skin off , I complained to her once about how bad i was feeling after coming to see her and she shrugged and said "some people are just more sensitive than others, none of my other patients are as sensitive as you"

I am actually quite scared, but I'm not sure if I'm paranoid or not, if I complain I want to be sure my treatment is truly out of the ordinary as it's been implied complaining may jeopardise my chances of continuing treatment and getting surgery, but I don't want to run the risk of her potentially doing more harm than good to my teeth either, for the first time in my whole life I'm afraid of the dentists and it's quite upsetting to feel this way. what would you do? am I in the wrong?

I'm not sure what you mean when you say your brother's ortho "tightens the existing wire". The wires can't be "tightened".

I got a new wire with each adjustment during my treatment. These wires start as thin round wires and progressively get stronger and thicker - you end up with rectangle wires, which do a different job than the initial round wires did.

Most wires these days have memory meaning they are meant to go back to a certain shape and are heat sensitive using your body heat to activate them.

The only way someone's wire is tightened, may be that the ends are clipped if they are too long because a person's teeth have moved. Sometimes if a wire is not replaced, just the elastic ligatures (if the brackets are not self-ligating) are changed.

"Braces tightening" is actually incorrect terminology as nothing is tightened.

Your ortho is not doing anything "wrong".

OK - except for maybe where she's putting so much pressure on you that she's cutting into you. That's not cool. Not sure what you can do about that.

But I have to tell you, every new wire caused me discomfort for several days - usually up to a week.

When I went in for adjustments, sometimes I got a new wire and sometimes I kept the same one. When I was keeping the same one, sometimes it was removed, some bends were made, and then it was replaced. Other times, especially earlier in my treatment, they just kept the wire in place. Yhey never removed a wire by cutting it -- It was always pulled out by some kind of pliers. If the ends were too long, these were clipped behind the back molars. Sometimes removing and replacing wires put pressure on sensitive teeth.

Anyway that was my experience. I don't think they should be cutting your lips! I don't know how old your brother is, but from having had braces once as a teen and again as an adult, I can say they were much more uncomfortable the second time and I had a lot more sensitivity as an adult. Hope this helps.

Your treatment is normal.
How many adjustments has your brother had? Maybe he just hasn't been ready to step up to a thicker wire yet so they just replaced the ligs and he was on his way. But he will start getting new wires. The wires get replaced with thicker ones as treatment progresses.

Your ortho sounds like my first ortho..... bad tempered NHS lady who used to really hurt my teeth (I'm sure she hurt more when you said 'ow'!). Needless to say, I didn't go back when my retainer broke and now I am in braces a second time...

I'm now paying for private treatment and I have the lady who actually owns the practice, and she's great. I've just had my first adjustment and I only had the ligs changed, not the wire, but I am expecting my wires to be changed at the next appointment.

The most painful part I found of treatment in the chair was having the moulds done as it pressed so hard on my wisdom teeth at the back.

Audra wrote:I'm not sure what you mean when you say your brother's ortho "tightens the existing wire". The wires can't be "tightened".

I got a new wire with each adjustment during my treatment. These wires start as thin round wires and progressively get stronger and thicker - you end up with rectangle wires, which do a different job than the initial round wires did.

Most wires these days have memory meaning they are meant to go back to a certain shape and are heat sensitive using your body heat to activate them.

The only way someone's wire is tightened, may be that the ends are clipped if they are too long because a person's teeth have moved. Sometimes if a wire is not replaced, just the elastic ligatures (if the brackets are not self-ligating) are changed.

"Braces tightening" is actually incorrect terminology as nothing is tightened.

Your ortho is not doing anything "wrong".

I've had mine "tightened" a couple of times. They grip the wire with pliers and pull the wire, tightening everything up. On both sides too. Hurts bad!

TWild wrote:

Audra wrote:I'm not sure what you mean when you say your brother's ortho "tightens the existing wire". The wires can't be "tightened".

I got a new wire with each adjustment during my treatment. These wires start as thin round wires and progressively get stronger and thicker - you end up with rectangle wires, which do a different job than the initial round wires did.

Most wires these days have memory meaning they are meant to go back to a certain shape and are heat sensitive using your body heat to activate them.

The only way someone's wire is tightened, may be that the ends are clipped if they are too long because a person's teeth have moved. Sometimes if a wire is not replaced, just the elastic ligatures (if the brackets are not self-ligating) are changed.

"Braces tightening" is actually incorrect terminology as nothing is tightened.

Your ortho is not doing anything "wrong".

I've had mine "tightened" a couple of times. They grip the wire with pliers and pull the wire, tightening everything up. On both sides too. Hurts bad!

Well, I'm at the end of my treatment and I have never had an archwire "tightened". I did have my final wire bent to wrap around my last molars before surgery to make sure my teeth would not move. But that was it.