Metal Mouth Message Board

I know that everyone progresses at their own rate with orthodontic treatment. I'm curious though about what "normal" is with regards to progression times. I'm 3 months into an estimated 2 year treatment plan. I had my 2nd follow-up appointment today. My orthodontist is pleased with my progress and arch development and said at my next appointment he will put me in a rectangle wire. A couple of the technicians seemed surprised that he was changing to a rectangle wire so soon in my treatment. Apparently I'm ahead of schedule at this point. I'm certainly not complaining, but I am curious about typical progressions.

Like you said, everyone is different but if I remember correctly, I wore the starting wires for the first 12 weeks. Then I moved onto rectangular wires.

I'm about 5.5 months in and I'm still wearing the same wires.

It's interesting to see this subject right now.

I had my second appointment yesterday and they removed the wimpy starter-arch wire and put the heftier rectangular wire in. I could tell right away I was in for some serious business! I'm just under two months in, but was seen a couple weeks early since I'm going to be out of town on business for almost three months.

My wife got her braces a couple months before me, and was shocked they gave me the beefier wire so fast. I think she gets to ride the pain-train at her next appointment in a couple weeks with the fun rectangular wire.

So my training wheels are off and my normal morning fibre breakfast bar put the crush on me today! There's the pain I remember. It's almost lunch time, hrm... what can I get that's semi-soft?

Smile BIG Y'all!

dennis

When I had my second adjustment, I had a rectagular wire put on my lowers. I was going to have a rectangle wire on my uppers but my uppers weren't ready just yet. At my next appointment, my ortho will go ahead and put the rectangle wire on my uppers.

I am almost 3 months in an am stuck in my starter wire until feb 6th and then I get to progress to a new thicker wire. My arches are not quite ready for a thicker wire so its all good. I was sort of let down but then I thought I did not want a sore mouth so I am happy with my starter wire. Besides I have so much movement, its really just my arches now that need to be fixed and my smile will be near perfect.

I had a rectangular wire inserted in my lowers in just 5 weeks after being braced. It did hurt for a while, but nothing major. However, during my last appt he decided to put the round wire back in. He said, that the round wire is better in "opening the bite", and rectangular is better in "moving teeth that are out of alignment".
So I guess there is no universal recepie. Don't be alarmed, wires get changed back and forth all the time, depending on your needs. And by the way, I personally would not take those "oh you are progressing so well!" comments too seriously. My ortho tells this all the time just to keep people motivated. He tells this to me during every appt, however, when I asked about elastics, apparently "my teeth have not spread out enough yet".
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that you don't make progress, maybe you are way ahead of schedule just in general, I have learned to not trust what the ortho says too much as sometimes this is just the way to keep people going.

I very much understand your statements about progression and taking what the ortho staff say with a grain of salt. He made an interesting comment at my appointment this week. So far my treatment has been about widening my upper arch. When he did my evaluation, he used an interesting analagy to describe my progress. He basically said my tongue had been living in a twin size space and already it is in a queen size space. He is hopeful I'll make it to king size. He said I should be breathing better since I'm getting more oxygen already and that it will help my body heal more productively as a result. One of the reasons I like this specialist is that he really believes and practices whole body health in relationship to dental health.

I really didn't expect to see this much progress so quickly into treatment. My teeth have always been fairly straight so i wasn't sure how much change I would expect. I just knew I need to get my bite into a better position to address my TMJ issues.

I was told to expect the same pain with the wire change that I had when I got my braces. I'm hoping it isn't as intense. I couldn't eat very well for the entire first month. I know it is all in the name of progress though. I just keep thinking about the end results. I know it will be worth it.

I'm 3 months in on the top and 2 weeks on the bottom and I started with a rectangular wire on both. My top teeth were pretty straight to begin and my bottom had crowding of 3 teeth.

A rectangular wire is used to exert a particular type of movement, it's used to apply torque to teeth.

The round wire is sometimes called the "starter wire" not because it's weak, but because it's usually used first. I, for example, never had a rectangular wire. My teeth only needed simple tipping, and a bit of leveling, so no torque was needed.

Ortho can be extremely frustrating and discouraging at times. The hardest part of patient management for me is trying to convey to my patients how insanely complicated what I'm trying to do is when it seems so simple.

I'm really glad I had adult braces before treating any ortho patients because I'm able to understand how beneficial it is for ortho patients to feel understood and their concerns respected.

There really isn't a cookie-cutter progression pattern for ortho except that there are broad phases of treatment. There's a whole lot of close and careful watching of the way a patient responds to each type of force applied and prompt adjustment at every necessary point.

TMJJill wrote: He said I should be breathing better since I'm getting more oxygen already and that it will help my body heal more productively as a result. One of the reasons I like this specialist is that he really believes and practices whole body health in relationship to dental health.

I really didn't expect to see this much progress so quickly into treatment. My teeth have always been fairly straight so i wasn't sure how much change I would expect. I just knew I need to get my bite into a better position to address my TMJ issues.

Good for you! Breathing is very important that is for sure!

TMJJill wrote:I was told to expect the same pain with the wire change that I had when I got my braces. I'm hoping it isn't as intense. I couldn't eat very well for the entire first month.

In my experience, it will be the same type pain, but MUCH LESS intense. Your teeth are now used to pressure so less stress and pain should be anticipated.
However, start preparing yourself for your lowers being braced. After my lowers were braced, I realized that my tops were not that bad at all