Metal Mouth Message Board

After getting my braces on (3 days ago!) I was amazed the ortho told me to set my appointment for 12 weeks out. He said I don't need to come in for adjustments more than that because the Damon brackets move the wire themselves. I'm trying to picture how exactly this works, but I can't figure it out by imagination alone and haven't had much luck searching Google for answers. Can anyone fill me in? or at least post some links on how Damon is engineered to work?

They are simply a particular brand of self-ligating bracket. (There are several brands, nothing special about Damons other than their heavy amounts of marketing.) With "conventional" brackets, the archwire is attached to the brackets with plastic or wire loops. With self-ligating brackets, some sort of mechanical mechanism is used instead. Early on in treatment, the plastic ligatures with conventional brackets wear out and must be replaced. Self-ligating brackets don't have such a wear part.

With all brackets, the archwire exerts force on the brackets so that the brackets are tugged to line up along the "ideal" shape of the archwire. Later on in your treatment, you will receive a rectangular wire that will engage the rectangular slots to also tip your teeth into their ideal position.

Roxxm wrote:After getting my braces on (3 days ago!) I was amazed the ortho told me to set my appointment for 12 weeks out. He said I don't need to come in for adjustments more than that because the Damon brackets move the wire themselves. I'm trying to picture how exactly this works, but I can't figure it out by imagination alone and haven't had much luck searching Google for answers. Can anyone fill me in? or at least post some links on how Damon is engineered to work?

Basically instead of the wire being fixed to the bracket, it sits inside it and can move freely which means no re-tightening/adjustments. You still need to get the wires trimmed as it lengthens the more your teeth straighten out. Hope that helps!

Thank you, that does help. I'd love to have a better understanding of the mechanical specifics. Not knowing how something works, esp something attached to my face, tends to nag at me.

In hindsight I should have gone to several orthos before getting braced. Perhaps I was too focused on costs and insurance. In the first consultations my ortho said he "only" uses Damon. I had no idea what that meant. Now I'm wondering if I should have gone to an orthodontist that offers a wider variety to make sure to go with the right method. I'm concerned about reading that Damon moves the teeth faster. My roots are already short enough that I've been having teeth loosening and falling out before the braces. Too late to change my mind now, I guess.

It's pretty simple. "Regular" brackets require something to hold the wire in the slot, and what they use are tiny rubber bands or wires to do that. Self-ligating braces have little doors over the slots that are part of the bracket. The ortho opens the door, puts the wire in and closes the door that holds the wire in place. IMHO a much better design than the standard brackets, but it can be a little uncomfortable when they snap those little doors open and closed. The only advantage I can think of for standard brackets are you can use colored tiny rubber bands, the ones that hold the wire in place, and give your mouth some color.

This is an interesting question. My orthodontist offers Damon but for some reason did not suggest them for me. I am using the white ceramic braces, so perhaps that's why.