Metal Mouth Message Board

Hello All!

I'm looking for options to pull down teeth to make them look longer (mainly the front ones). I will talk with my ortho, but I wanted to get your opinions and see if this is possible and what your experience was. My other option would be to reduce my gums I guess? Which I'm not a big fan of. Any help would be highly appreciated. Thanks!

Also, maybe some procedures might be limited as I am currently living in Peru.

I think the typical procedure for this simply involves drilling a tiny hole through the front of each tooth that you want lengthened. They then thread a wire through the hole and leave about six inches of slack hanging. They attach a little weight to the bottom of the wire and over time, the weight pulls the tooth down little by little. The tooth comes down until the hole is at the point where you want the tooth to end, and they remove the wire and trim off the rest of the tooth up to the top of the hole, leaving a smooth edge.

Actually, I have the same question. I'd like to make my front uppers look longer. I think they can extrude them to at least make look longer, but your gums may also be lower so this is a trade off.
I will try to ask about this during one of my appts, but would appreciate any information.

can't they put a bend in the wire to direct the tooth to go down? this is what I am wanting my ortho to do for my upper canines...

My ortho lengthened my laterals so they're now even with my front teeth. I used to have longer front teeth and I sort of miss that look. I'm going to ask him next time if he can lengthen them. I wonder if he'll think I'm crazy I see that he bent a few wires on the bottom teeth last time to lengthen a few of those. It's pretty cool what they can do.

I too wonder if teeth can be shortened in the same manner. Or do they just file them down instead? Anyone know?

Teeth can be intruded and extruded with braces or retainers. It's simpler with braces. For retainers, a button needs to be bonded to the tooth and a wire spring attached to pull it out a bit. It's fairly common.

So my ortho answered this a while ago (he mentioned bending the wire) but we couldn't get to it until last week. He bent the wire a couple times to lower my front teeth on Friday and I can already notice a difference. It's pretty cool, however it hurts a lot! I haven't been able to eat many solids and I'm in constant pain even when smiling. We'll see how it goes!

Marigold wrote:I too wonder if teeth can be shortened in the same manner. Or do they just file them down instead? Anyone know?

I have the opposite problem, my front two teeth on the top are too long, and my ortho said we would be pushing them back into my jaw. Yes, it hurts The roof of my mouth hurt a lot initially.

I have heard of them shaving the tooth down, but I also heard it is quite painful and imagine it would weaken the tooth since you are removing enamel and getting closer to the root.

I have two longish front teeth, and my ortho plans to push them up a little and pull the ones beside down a little, for an overall more balanced look. Just with regular braces.

Filing teeth seems pretty drastic. Usually you want to hold on to all healthy tooth material.

I just had my 4th adjustment yesterday. My ortho is now doing the fine tuning and pulling down one of my front teeth is being done. My ortho removed my bracket and raised it slightly to exert pressure to pull it down. And now 24 hours later they are already even and perfect. Its amazing. It hurts but its worth it.

jamsmak04 wrote:I just had my 4th adjustment yesterday. My ortho is now doing the fine tuning and pulling down one of my front teeth is being done. My ortho removed my bracket and raised it slightly to exert pressure to pull it down. And now 24 hours later they are already even and perfect. Its amazing. It hurts but its worth it.

thanks for this info.
i chipped one of my front tooth as a child and never got it corrected. i had intended to get some bonding done after braces to get it in line with the one next to it but the ortho said he could get them on the same level with the braces. he did not explain how it would be done but i think i will dig deeper into it when i go in for my next adjustment.