Metal Mouth Message Board

Since I successfully navigated adult braces everyone in my family thinks I know more about them than I do. My younger brother , he is 45, had poor orthodontia when he was young and his front teeth have moved around. He has been told that what he needs are 6month braces on his front teeth. I suspect that he is being told that because it sounds so much simpler than full braces and wonder if I should suggest to him that he should be suspicious of the quick fix. I recall being told that the long term results with fixed braces were better, but I can't remember what I was told. I know I was encouraged to have regular full braces.

The 6 month braces will make his teeth look straighter, but they don't usually take bite into account. If he's looking for a quick aesthetic fix, that's fine, but if he's looking for a better functioning jaw/bite, he should probably go for full treatment.

Thanks for your reply. Have you seen any other posts on this subject. I am sure you are correct, but I would like to send him some more information

6 months smiles is a brand name to describe an aesthetic system for anterior movements only. It was created by a general dentist and aimed at general dentists to help increase their office production. The braces work in the same way as full braces, but the goal is to align the teeth only without regard for issues such as the bite.

Basically, to align the anterior teeth does not take a long time, and 6 month smiles can take longer or shorter depending on the amount of movement required.

My dentist offered me the 6-month smile when I told him I was going to get braces. My teeth were nice and straight after about three months, but now we're getting the real work done - all the fine-tuning and bite correction. The first few months didn't hurt at all, but like I said, that was the easy stuff.

Guess it's not clear that I didn't go with the 6-month smile. I went to an orthodontist and was told 18-24 months.

When I was doing my research on six month smiles, I found a lot of images I wasn't impressed with. Flared teeth mostly. It just looked weird and not something I wanted to end up with.

" It was created by a general dentist and aimed at general dentists to help increase their office production."

Thanks for that insight Dr. Tam!

"Aimed at general dentists" should be a Danger Will Robinson!!! RED ALERT! kind of signal. I see quite a lot of "miracle" orthodontic appliances mentioned here that curiously aren't usually sold to actual orthodontists. (The ALF is the first that comes to mind...) Many of them are sold in the completely non-sensical "What Orthodontists Don't Want You To Know" kind of way; "orthotropics" is the first I can think of. (As in, if an appliance was safe, effective, and fast, why wouldn't an orthodontist want to use it?) In my book, another danger signal is a general dentist claiming to practice "functional orthodontics" while very carefully not calling themselves an actual orthodontist; like becoming an actual orthodontist puts you in some sort of secret cabal that exists to force members to ignore the bite and jaw while only using the most painful treatments that take the most time.

Thanks for your replies. I told my nephew that he needed to get a second opinion and recommended my orthodontist who I am fairly certain will tell him what he needs to know.