Metal Mouth Message Board

I had an adjustment today where I was outfitted with double powerchains. Oh my gosh. I thought just regular ol powerchains hurt. This is like 100 times worse. They slapped one on just my brackets, then put a wire in and then slapped another one over the top of that. Needless to say, I'm incredibly sore and grouchy. It was so tight when she put them on, I asked her if she was sure that was what he meant.

I swear, I felt like my teeth were being pulled out on the spot. I guess my ortho likes this 'newer' method for closing gaps quickly. I must say, it is doing its job, in a very painful fashion.

Anyone else ever had this done?

What exactly do powerchains do?

Do they correct overbites?

They close gaps.

My ortho did it to me 2 months ago for the same reason, but he only did it once. The gaps are still there, but almost closed (about 1mm to go). The doubles do work faster. And I too know that pain, but just like all the other things he's doing that cause pain initially, it will subside. Hang in there... this is the good kinda pain.

Can you post a pic of your double powerchains? I can't imagine how that looks like...

tklein22000 wrote:Can you post a pic of your double powerchains? I can't imagine how that looks like...

I could, but it would be pointless. The way they are, you can't even tell that there are two there. They're stacked exactly on top of each other so it just looks like one. The only way you can tell there are two is if I tilt my head up and you look up from the bottom to see that there are two bands instead of one.

The pain is probably going to kill me. That's how I am feeling at the moment, but holy smokes my biggest gap right in the front has closed considerably in 24 hours. It should for all this awful pain.

Thanks for the commiseration and well wishes, guys and gals.

For tk: Here's a pic. I realize after I reread my post it came off as kind of rude. I apologize, I didn't mean it to sound like that. I took this pic tonite and if you look really closely on the top teeth, you can kind of see the edge of the bottom chain. I can best describe this whole torture device as a powerchain sandwich with the wire in the middle.



Just for reference: the below pic would be my teeth about 2 weeks into braces. The above is now. Geez, I feel like there's been a lot more progress than it looks like.

wow! I think your progress is awesome!

Well thank you, dena!

I thought it was much better until I posted those two pics together. Also, I noticed the one tooth is angled in and I swear I've never seen that in real life.

I must also mention this is 7 months later. Now it really doesn't seem like much has happened when I think of how long it's been!

Are your powerchains closing the gap between the two front teeth? I can't really tell you have two powerchains on.

Yeah, they are. I didn't have much gap closure until I got the first powerchain put on last month and even that didn't do a whole lot. But these double ones, whoa. They closed the biggest one in the front by about half in about 24 hours. Other stuff has moved too. My wire is already poking out enough that I'll have to go have it clipped this week because it's wearing a hole in my cheek.

I defnitely see some movement there especially in a relatively short amount of time! I've had braces for 20 months now (well top for that long and bottom for about 1 month) and I feel like I've barely had any progress! I guess I really am going to have braces for 4 years!

Hope your teeth are feeling better now. ANd I totally understand how painful powerchains are although I've never had double! Good that there working though!

My wire is also poking out on the bottom because of some powerchains but my ortho's office doesn't even open again until January 3 and my appt. is on the 11th. So I guess I'll just wait.

Good luck wiht the rest of your treatment and hope you get some more awesome progress soon!

-Hannah




Top braces: 4/28/04
Bottom braces: 11/16/05

I know the pain that you are feeling. I never had a gap in my teeth until after I got braces (my teeth are slightly overcrowded). But after my first adjustment, they started the process of bringing one of my eye teeth down a little bit, in the process, it pulled one of my front teech over and started causing a gap in between my two front teeth. Anyway, the gap got about 2 mm wide before my next adjustment. The ortho said that it was normal but I guess he could tell how much it was bothering me b/c right as I was about done, he said, "If you want, we can put a powerchain on those teeth and go ahead and start closing that gap for you". I was thankful to start closing the gap. But when they put on that powerchain, I really thought my teeth were going to fall off in her hands, but guess what, by the time I got to my car and looked in the mirror, the gap was GONE! I couldn't believe it, they closed a 2 mm gap in 5 minutes (but I definatley felt every second of it!!) My teeth remained sore for about 3 weeks. I can't imagine what two must feel like.

Thanks to both of you ( ronnie and hannah ) for the commiseration. It's always welcome when I'm feeling this crappy. It's actually way better now. The pain is next to gone, just occasional twinges here and there now. I had hoped for more change than I have seen ( I know I'm impatient ), but I'll be glad for what did happen and hope to God that this is the only time I'll have the double pc's.

double post. Weird bug thing happened.