Metal Mouth Message Board

I've had my tops on for 4 months now and my teeth are improving greatly. Next adjustment there should be enough space for my bottoms to go on. I can handle one set of braces but I'm not really looking forward to two. I asked the ortho since my tops were looking pretty good and the crowding was less severe than the bottoms if they would come off earlier. He said "no, not usually." I couldn't get a good explanation either, why is this? Right now the prospect of 20 more months with both sets of braces on is really depressing me. I'm pretty sure my tops will be perfect in 12 months so why do I need to leave them on longer.

I don't have my braces on yet but my Dr. told me that I should only have to wear the top braces for 6 months and the bottom for about a year. I don't know any more than what he told me though.

It may be that you have bite issues which you will need to wear elastics to correct. For elastics, you need to have bottom and top braces at the same time, so as to have places to anchor the elastics to.

Bite is something that almost everyone has to get fixed, and they just can't do it without both arches wired...no matter how much that annoys us patients!