Metal Mouth Message Board

Hello,

I went for a consult today with my DMD who does Invisalign. My lower teeth are very crowded and I have a cross bite in one area. He mentioned limitations with treatment correcting my crossbite but I am not worried as my objective is to straighten my front teeth which he called a "cosmetic alignment". He mentioned possibly extracting one of my lower front teeth to make room. Has anyone had this done? How long did it take for the gap to close? He also mentioned the process where they file between your teeth to make room but could not gurantee results as the extraction would leave more room.

I have another consult with an Orthodontist next week.

Thanks,
Linda

just make sure u ask him what the chances are that the teeth which will move in the extraction site are not going to tip and see what he says

If he's not lazy he should be able to get two different versions of the Clincheck. One with a tooth extraction and the other with the shaving of teeth.

It always seemed silly to me to remove good teeth to make room, but a lot of people seem to have that done and are happy with it.

I had a choice between having my wisdom teeth removed or having about 8 of my front lower teeth shaved. I chose to have the wisdom teeth removed because 3 of them weren't completely in. This was probably different than your situation though.

It'll vary how long it will take the extraction gap to close. I had four extractions done (all four premolars behind the canines) and mine still aren't closed on tray 32, though they're getting close. I imagine with only one tooth gone it'll depend.

In the meantime, though, your ortho will be able to fill the space with a "fake" tooth - he'll fill the gap in the tray with a tooth-colored kind of gummy plastic, so no one will be able to tell it's missing. I had those too, and they really do look fine.

The shaving, or IPR, probably won't make as much room, but depending on the severity of your case, may be a good alternative.

If you have other questions about extractions, do a search for "extraction" in the archives.

Hi,

I had crowding on my bottom teeth and had a middle bottom tooth that overlaped, removed to make room.

I was also worried about what it would look like, but decided to go for it as my ortho told me I would not notice when the aligner was in my mouth and he was right!

I am quite conscious of the gap when the aligner is out, but this just ensures I keep the aligner in my mouth at all times, except for eating of course!!

I am on my 4th aligner on the bottom teeth and already I have noticed the gap closing in, more so at the top of the teeth, but it has a long way to go yet, as I have 24 aligners for the bottom.

Hi, everybody here,
I just come across this topic here and I'm wondering how big are you guys's extractions that can be closed by Invisalign? Especially Blair: you mentioned that you had 4 pre-molars extracted, do you know how big is each gap? I have a similar situation except I am having regular wire braces now and am considering switching to Invisalign if possible. My 2 upper pre-molar extraction gaps are both about 6mm wide, so I'm just wondering if they are good candidates for using Invisalign. Any info will help!!!

Thanks a lot!

Thanks, Meryaten! I guess by now I've had a pretty good idea of the gap closing issues here, I'll just prepare for the worst but still keep my hope up:)