Metal Mouth Message Board

Ok, I just posted my first post but wanted to post again with a different topic. I'm 51 and everyone thinks I'm insane to do this, but anyhow....

Two issues that concern me about getting braces or invisalign. One is that my teeth are weird shaped anyway. My two front teeth are normal size but the two teeth to the side of the front two teeth are a lot more narrow & also quite a bit shorter. So, even with correction of my crowding, my teeth still aren't going to look perfect just because they can't reshape my teeth. Does anyone else on this board have a similar looking smile? Maybe I should post a picture.

Also, I still have a baby molar at age 51. There is no permanent molar underneath. It's in good shape & I want to keep it as long as I can. The roots still look pretty good with some minor resorption. I will ask the ortho this but I really want to do the invisalign with this baby tooth in place & not have it extracted. Is this stupid? I realize down the road that I will eventually lose my baby tooth & need an implant & then at that point, I will need a new retainer? I also at some point down the road need a crown on a molar. What are thoughts on getting invisalign with these existing problems? I don't mind getting the crown fixed before invisalign (although it's just a minor crack & does not bother me) but don't really want to extract the baby tooth.
Any thoughts?

My two front teeth are bigger than the ones beside them - and the two on the right side were shorter than the left due to an incident with monkey bars when I was little that was never fixed. The gum line on those 2 teeth were also lower than the other 2. While invisalign straightened them, etc they still were diff lengths and looked odd. So what my dentist did is to some tooth bonding at the end to make the two shorter ones the same length and such as the other side - and did a gingivectomy (cut part of the gum line) to make that more even too.

I would think if the ortho says he can do the treatment without taking out the baby tooth or redoing the crown then I would say wait until you really have to have them done to do it. If the crown is cracked enough that it could crack further with the invisalign however, you might want to get it fixed first - only your provider would know if it could be damaged further when that tooth is moved. I had to have a filling redone during treatment and they just used my prior tray to get that tooth the same shape as before so that my trays still fit. If you do major work after you get your retainer, then yes, you'd need a new retainer if they can't keep it the same shape/size, etc.

Good luck!