Metal Mouth Message Board

Just had another arch wire snap! What's the deal? I've had one snap on the bottom -- and not, the top one has broken. And, to top it off, it's Friday night (if only it happened last night, i could go in on "fix-it" day and get it replaced. Now I have to put up with this until Monday. Aargh! Anyone else have this problem?

How the heck did you snap an archwire? They ones I have had seem to be pretty ductile, and not prone to snapping. The closest thing I had to this was when the oral surgeon cut out a section of the archwire for an extraction, though I was under anesthesia at the time. Could you put wax to hold it together?

I waxed it - but not pretty or fun! I am not sure how it snapped but it's been at least the 2nd time -- one on the lower and one on the upper, same region. maybe it's just OLD teeth that are stubborn??? (haha, i'm only 48!). Could be they were both fairly close to extractions. Anyway I went in this morning and the Ortho said, "why didn't you call me and I would have come in to fix it!" Really, I didn't consider it an ortho emergency -- inconvenience and PIA, yes, but I was thinking of searching for wire cutters by Sunday afternoon! Fortunately, I have a good orthodontist and staff who are more than customer oriented and get you in FAST, so by 8:15 am, I was there, getting it fixed. As a bonus, I got more wires/ligs, a couple of new power chains and new o-rings (that's a bonus?)-- kind of like a mid-schedule check up. Now, my teeth kind of ache, but at least things are moving......

The earlier archwires for me were not "breakable", but some of the later ones were.