Metal Mouth Message Board

Hi everyone, I' m a 19 year old male and I've had my expander for about a month now. At my first checkup on the 5th of this month, my ortho told me that we were getting great expansion. However, now I'm starting to notice some problems. the wire that they hook around the first premolar is no longer wrapped around mine on the right side. I'm not sure if that is normal or not. Also, I've noticed that my second premolar is tipping outward when the rest of my teeth are not. I've heard horrible things about tipping and my next appointment is not until the 19th. Do you think I should stop turning? Thank you so much to anyone who answers!

Yes I tihnk you should stop turning it in the condition it is now and jsut wait till you go to your opiontment its worth keeping it on a few extra weeks esp. since you don't want to riun anything by truning it in the condition it is in.

I would call your ortho. Chances are they will tell you to not turn it. But they may want you to go in to be sure that these things weren't negatively affecting your progress. There are some things that they would want to see you right away for, and others that you can just wait until your next appointment.

Thank you everybody for the answers! I decided to stop turning my expander about 4 days ago, and had my ortho appointment today. He seemed a little irritated that I stopped turning and said "You can hardly ever get too much expansion, so we'll keep turning" I'm pretty dissapointed because I was kind of looking forward to getting this thing off today. I feel like we gave it a try, now it's time to move on. But he insists :/ Does anybody else think its a bad idea to continue turning when you're getting significant tipping?? Im so confused..

If your ortho wants you to continue turning, then I would. It sounds like you are early in treatment, he can always fix the other issues later on. He is the one who went to school, so I would take his advice.

Yeah I definatly agree with snowglobe. I mean I've had a few issues that once I called the office and twice I paged her and she herself oersonally called me back and we resolved it. I mean she's the BEST around been in practice for about 30 yrs, but sometimes she says stuff I don't exactly agree with at first but then she will explain why and I will understand. I have the upmost confidence in my ortho she did after all go to a great dental school so I know she knows what she is doing it's just a little confusing to me at times. Like something will be done now and something will end up worse but she always fixes that later. In the end I know I will have a beautiful smile. Hang in thar.

Mdoodm1000 wrote:Thank you everybody for the answers! I decided to stop turning my expander about 4 days ago, and had my ortho appointment today. He seemed a little irritated that I stopped turning and said "You can hardly ever get too much expansion, so we'll keep turning" I'm pretty dissapointed because I was kind of looking forward to getting this thing off today. I feel like we gave it a try, now it's time to move on. But he insists :/ Does anybody else think its a bad idea to continue turning when you're getting significant tipping?? Im so confused..

Tipping can be fixed with various bracket manipulations. Brackets can't make your palate wider, and brackets have nowhere to move teeth for their job if your arch isn't big enough.