I have bad news, the braces are still there!! It's all gone wrong!! A big rant ahead....
I'll start from the beginning, a few months ago I expressed a concern that I still had a really gummy smile and wondered if anything could be done about it (without surgery). My ortho orginally said no but now it turns out she started pushing the teeth higher into the gum, and by doing this the gap, that was orginally created by IPR became more prominent and my teeth started to fan out (not the effect I was hoping for)
Anyways 3 weeks before the debandment (12th May) the IPR gap still hadn't closed, and the teeth still fanned/stuck out (which is far from my dream of having teeth that go straight down). I was upset coz they were pushed up into the gum, when she orginally told me she wasn't going to do anything about the gummy smile, if I'd have known it was a choice between gummy smile and fanned out teeth I'd have chosen the gummy smile!! I was also annoyed that that before this was done my teeth were more or less excatly how I wanted them, now they had gone excatly how i didn't want them!! So I rang the ortho and got booked in for one last tweak before debanding.
The ortho put on a very strange contraption, as well as the usual archwire and front powerchain, there is now what appears to be a piece of very thin wire, folded over and then twisted at the end, then there is an elastic which holds it to the bracket. There is one of these either side which is supposed to pull all of the teeth back. After this the debanding got put back till the 28th of May, just in time for my cousins wedding on the 31st.
Anyway it worked!! the teeth are straight down just as I wanted them!! and they are still further up into the gum, the teeth are shorter but my gummy smile is slightly better. BUT.... the gap was still there!! I went back to the ortho and she explained that because they had been pushed upwards, the gap had closed at the roots but was still open at the end (closed in a triangular shape if u know what I mean).
Anyway, the root/top of the tooth was filed down, needless to say this HURT!! having a file pushed right up into the gum as far as it will go and moving it from side to side isn't pleasant. The gum is still sore now!!
The debanding is no longer going to be the 28th coz the gap is still there and I have to go back for more wonderful tooth filing and gum slicing in a few weeks
I'm totally gutted, the braces will not come off until this gaps closed and i have no idea when this will be. (I know I'm being fussy about a tiny gap but for £3000 i expect perfection, especially when she created the gap in the first place!!)
What I don't understand is this:
- Surely the IPR gap should have closed long ago when the whole purpose was to create room to pull the teeth in.
- Why didn't she tell me she was pushing the teeth upwards and surely she should've know that by doing this it would make the teeth fan out, and cause the gap to close incorrectly. (I have expressed so many times that I don't want to end up with fanned out teeth if it can be helped)
- The position of the roots should be on the x-ray so surely she should've pridicted this would happen.
Basically she is now struggling to close a gap, that she created (my teeth were certainly not gappy before!) And the fact that she is closing it right at the very end of the treatment surely means it wasn't used for it's orginal purpose of creating space and pulling the teeth in so it is a piontless gap!!
Oh and because of all the hassle with this gap, that once is closed, I have to have a bonded retainer up top, which is gonna cost an extra £200!!!!
If u are still reading this, thanks for listening to my rant.
Needless to say I'm not a happy chappy!!
