Metal Mouth Message Board

I went for a consultation an instead he put braces on. totally unexpected

Woohoo is the appropriate reply to that, honest!!!

Welcome to the club!

T xx

That's pretty amazing! Welcome to the club!

How long are you in for? I had a consultation where the ortho offered to start immediately as well, it was so hard for me to decline, but I had to due to scheduling conflicts. Hope all goes well. Let us know how you are getting on.

I can't wait to get mine on the 22nd. I'm waay too anxious.

Chell38 wrote:I went for a consultation an instead he put braces on. totally unexpected

I guess its not that surprising, although the same happened to me and i was surprised (probably mostly due to it pushing them past when they were supposed to close for the day)

Not to sound like a Debbie Downer, but I hope you had your molds and xrays done before the braces went on! I can't imagine myself going in for a consult and agreeing to get braced without much thinking going into it. It's like me agreeing to go to jail without ever knowing the charges against me.

Anyways, I hope all is going well.

metalliKa wrote:Not to sound like a Debbie Downer, but I hope you had your molds and xrays done before the braces went on! I can't imagine myself going in for a consult and agreeing to get braced without much thinking going into it. It's like me agreeing to go to jail without ever knowing the charges against me.

Anyways, I hope all is going well.

I hope so as well, at mine they had a 360 degree CAT scan X-ray machine to eliminate that step

It makes sense they would want to. Until the braces are on, you basically can back out of the paying. The quicker they get them on, the sooner they have you hooked.

Tyrantblade wrote:

metalliKa wrote:Not to sound like a Debbie Downer, but I hope you had your molds and xrays done before the braces went on! I can't imagine myself going in for a consult and agreeing to get braced without much thinking going into it. It's like me agreeing to go to jail without ever knowing the charges against me.

Anyways, I hope all is going well.

I hope so as well, at mine they had a 360 degree CAT scan X-ray machine to eliminate that step

True! However, the poster was pretty vague and I doubt anyone would want to be that impulsive without exploring other options. I know I wouldn't, especially since orthodontic is a pretty hefty investment in terms of time and financial. Unless they offered him a great quote and quick result (which would automatically be a red flag to me) but still...for me I'd still need at least a couple of days to consider it. You just cannot simply rely on the words of the ortho upon just meeting him. He needs to study your molds and xrays carefully prior to prescribing a treatment plan.

I agree with you, metalliKa, and I think I've posted to similar effect elsewhere here. I don't think it's necessarily malpractice to slap braces on quickly, but I am pretty skeptical of hard-sell practices. I had to buy a car recently when my very old one died and I definitely saw some parallels to the braces buying experience:

• Free beverages, nice fixtures on display when you walk into the showroom/office
• Friendly, personable, empathetic salesman/treatment coordinator
• New car smell/pictures of perfect teeth to get you emotionally excited about the product
• Discussion of your current car/your orthodontic problems to build value for their car/treatment
• Glossy literature to take home featuring gorgeously detailed cars/beautiful people with perfect teeth wearing braces
• Financing plans that obscure/make more palatable the total cost of the car/treatment
• Artificial sense of urgency to get you into the product today

All of this said, I think much more highly of orthodontists and their treatment coordinators than I do car salesmen, and I understand that both are competitive, nearly zero-sum business models and that sales techniques are universal. Thus, I do think it is usually a poor idea to buy a car or braces without shopping around -- more so for braces, since you can buy the identical new car anywhere.

I''m super anxious to get mine on; 9 days left!