Luna's orthodontic saga

[Luna]

Hello everybody. This site is great. I only wish the internet and this site had been around in the early nineties when I had my first orthodontic treatment. This turned out to be one of the most horrible experiences I’ve ever had.

I had a large overjet which made me very self conscious throughout my childhood and teens. At age 19 in 1993 I was referred to this orthodontist and was so excited at the thought of having great looking teeth at the end of it. He was a very experienced, old-school type orthodontic consultant and so I thought I would be in good hands. He said it would take 1 year to move the 9mm overjet back behind the lower lip and then a year in retention. His plan was to move the lower incisors up and forward to help this and use the lower molars as anchorage to pull the top teeth back without any extractions.

After I had the brace fitted and got home I was horrified when I looked in the mirror and saw that he used too much glue on the lower incisors. So much in fact that all the excess glue had joined up into one continuous strip across all these teeth and the surrounding gums. Alarm bells rang straight away about his competence. How could he take such little care about this.

Naturally the brackets didn’t stay on long when glued on like this. When I tried to tell him it was clear he didn’t see a problem with having excess glue like this. He was such an authoritative old man it was hard to say anything without him getting snappy and defensive. Anyway he’d glue the brackets back on in the same way with too much glue and they would always come off. This went on and on every month and he would blame me for knocking the brackets off.

He was also very heavy handed and all the usual pushing and pulling always sent me into a panic and this would make him so cross. He would always end up shouting at me for my distress. As soon as I came out of every appointment I would be in tears for days.

This went on. The upper incisors did go back a bit, but the lower teeth were going all over the place as they were taking the force of moving the top teeth back. The fact that I had no brackets on the lower premolars didn’t help.

Eventually he gave up with trying to get the lower teeth forward with brackets and archwire and placed this appliance that worked from the inside.

However 18 months in I was still in despair at what was happening. I didn’t know what to do. As it was private treatment and had already paid for all of it, leaving was not that easy. I complained to my dentist about him and asked him what I should do but he didn’t want to know. I never went back to that dentist.

Eventually I decided to tell the orthodontist I wanted to go to a different orthodontist, as I was so unhappy with the treatment progress and his manner towards me. This did not go down well. He went into such a rage and said he would not send me elsewhere and how dare I criticise him when treatment was not yet finished. He said I was ungrateful for all he had done for me so far. After an hour of arguing he apologised for always shouting at me and said he wanted me to continue treatment with him.

So I endured treatment for a total of 4 years! I was in the blackest depression ever during this time. I only got through it by telling myself I could always have further treatment later to put things right.

So at the end my overjet was about 2mm which did look much better, however I was devastated at how messed up my lower teeth had become. Furthermore my left upper lateral incisor which was always set too far behind the other teeth was still set back and I needed to have that bonded to build it up. Worst still shortly after finishing treatment my top canine went dark in colour and it turned out the prolonged forces had damaged the nerve in it.

Well I lived with the result for 9 years. Over these years my overjet has come back to about 7mm. Seeing photos of myself last year and how awful my teeth look made me decide I had to undergo treatment again. Not only to fix the overjet once and for all but to also put right the messed up lower teeth. I thought about it for a year, but naturally after my last experience I was very apprehensive.

So my 2nd orthodontic journey started in March 2006 when I was referred to my new orthodontist. This time I had millions of questions and made him explain his proposal in great detail. One of things I had to ask was how he deals with excess glue when attaching brackets! This ortho is much younger and more up to date with techniques. He proposed asymmetrical extraction of upper 2nd premolar to create some space. I went ahead with this and am now about 10 weeks into treatment. But I feel a lot better as I know I can easily question him and say if I’m not happy with something.

Hope this doesn't worry anyone about to start ortho treatment. I don't think there are many orthos as bad as my first one around.

[Jillianleab]

Wow, you've had quite a journey! I'm glad you finally found an ortho you are happy with, and I hope you get the results you should have gotten in the first place!

Congrats on taking the plunge to be braced a second time, and welcome to the site!