Metal Mouth Message Board

I'm getting braces in 2 weeks. My three triplet daughters have been in braces for a year and a half. Recently when they went in for an appointment, the orthodontist did some filing of their front teeth so that all 4 of their front teeth would be about the same length.. I was kind of upset because their teeth are a little on the small side anyway and now they look even smaller. He said he does this with all his patients. Does your ortho do this? Does anyone know why?

Shaving teeth while a patient is in braces is one of the most stupid things to do in my opinion. You never know how the teeth will turn out after braces. Even after braces, teeth move into their ideal position. I think shaving could happen only a year after braces are removed.

Terrible idea! I had my teeth filed and I am experiencing a load of problems because of it. However, it was my back molars that received most of the damage. It wasn't my idea to have my teeth filed, it's just what my orthodontist does to his patients. Find a new orthodontist! I'm sure there's plenty that will help you WITHOUT damaging your enamel. I'm currently looking to find a second opinion for what can be done for my case...

Triplets, wow! And triplets in braces, triple wow! Haha!

I agree with the others, they shouldn't have been filed, especially while still in braces. The Ortho should've cleared that with you first! That said, I bet all three girls still look adorable!

Most orthos will do this simply to get rid of the three little "bumps" everyone has at the bottom of their front teeth, but I've never heard of someone doing this during braces, only after.

If the teeth are not the same length, I would think that making them the same length would improve their aesthetics?

Shaving teeth is not that uncommon. If your teeth are chipped and worn, smoothing the edges is a quick and easy way to instantly improve your appearance.

In my case, I had my upper incisors shaved down a considerable amount throughout treatment, and I like the way they turned out. He shaved a little bit off on 3 separate occasions though so I had a few months to see how it looked and if I wanted more. Check my sig to see the changes. You can see a huge difference in all the teeth if you look at the pre-treatment photo compared to the post treatment at the end.

When I got my braces off my ortho smoothed out a few teeth. So it may be common for after braces are removed.

I had some pretty uneven edges on my two front upper teeth. He evened those out the day the first put the expander in. I asked about the bottoms, he said he wait til later in the process, which made sense to me. Doing those two uppers certainly made an immediate appearance improvement, despite them not being straight and still gapped.