Metal Mouth Message Board

On damon braces at the moment. On my last check up 2 days ago they showed me a picture of where my teeth were at 4 months in. I knew it made some progress. Infact the top set were pretty good with little work left or so I thought.

But when they show you the pictures on their computer with their super quality camera ... my teeth don't look so good! It's almost like looking at a close up makes me think there's still a long way to go. It was rather disappointing.

Anybody else had that feeling before where you wonder what the reality is?

Don't get discouraged. Your x-rays are probably showing you more of the root position than you would see by looking in the mirror. My ortho said my tops would "look" in line within 4 months or so and my bottoms by about 8 months. She was pretty right on. That's to get the crowns all aligned and your teeth properly in the arch. The tough part is for the roots to follow and that's what takes all the time. I didn't have much root movement at all until I went into the heavy duty wire about 10 months into treatment. My tops were all lined up where it was visible but if I opened wide and you looked at the back side, you could see the roots were all still slanted and not where they're supposed to be straight under the teeth. I've been about a month into what she called the last wire. It's the pretty big rectangle shaped one and I already see the roots moving over. That also helps close up any of those triangle spaces you might see. Once the roots move over, the gums start to fill in a little better.

Remember ortho is not just about aesthetics....

They "look" good to us when whatever hang ups we have/had about our teeth/smile seems to be corrected to our likeness.
But the ortho knows best and he/she sees what actually has to be done aside from the look of our teeth....they pay attention to function as well...

Dont be discouraged...they look worse before they look better...lol