Questions about Clear Brackets

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#16 Post by **Rachel B** » Tue Feb 03, 2009 10:44 am

Well,

I don't think clear brackets are that bulky. They felt bulky when I first got them on but mainly because I had braces on that I wasn't used to. It's fine really.

#17 Post by **soniabaldeo** » Tue Feb 03, 2009 1:46 pm

Thank you all so much. I will sure post my journey.Thanks

#18 Post by **rolo** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 8:38 am

My impression from consultations and reading the forum is there are two schools of thought as to whether ceramics take longer, some orthos say a couple of months, some are adament this is not so. The modern ceramic brackets all advertise as being better than the early ones.

My own experience with radiance clear brackets on my bottom teeth, so far fine, I'm pleased with how discrete they are. My experience was that my teeth moved, from "severe" crowding to "basically straight" to quote my ortho in 3-4 mths. This makes me lean towards it more to do with the skill of the ortho and a bit of luck than the material the brackets are made of.

Re staining, I have found the pearl (white) ligatures look better for longer than the either the clear or tooth coloured ones which start off fairly yellow. The practice I am with are fairly good about changing them between adjustments.

#19 Post by **KAS03** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 10:25 pm

Good luck to you!! I had ceramics put on three weeks ago and am so incredibly happy with them! I was actually leaning toward the traditional for a long time, and last minute a friend who had ceramics convinced me otherwise. Although braces has been a huge adjustment; I can say that they look great and are barely visible!

#20 Post by **TigerLily** » Thu Feb 05, 2009 5:01 pm

My *personal* opinion is that all metals immediately show to everyone you are in braces. With clear braces, most people don't notice them, I find the people who noticed them were people who'd had braces themselves at some stage in their life.

My clear braces don't have a notably larger footprint (they do have some but not notably) than my metal brackets. They are not ceramic though but polycarbonate (they are called Spirit Plus, made by Ormco).

My ortho didn't mention any longer treatment plans, she said it was going to be X time and I could have either metal or clear, there was a difference in price and that was the only factor - when I said I was going to have clear on both arches, she said it was up to me but personally she thought it was a good decision, anything that made me feel more confident was better.

However, there are other things except the type of braces to take into account on the cosmetic side. For example, I've had a coil spring and now I'm in lots of elastics - so it's obvious from the get go that I'm in braces. So with one thing or another, in my 18 month treatment plan, I've only had 6 months where I just had the braces and nothing else. But I do take my elastics out for a 'special occasion'.

#21 Post by **jjrp434** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 1:28 pm

Clear braces work very similar to metal braces. There are different companies that manufacture clear braces and they all are a little different. How the braces look will depend also on whether or not the braces are self-ligating or not...meaning do they hook onto the wire themselves or do they need additional ties to hold the wire. Clear self-ligating braces usually have some componenet of metal in them to hold the wire to the brace. Here is link to examples of clear braces and self-ligating braces. Hope this helps!

#22 Post by ***melissa*** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 5:41 pm

Honestly, if I had to go back and do it again, I'd go with damon braces (they are the really small metal kind.) I have wasted so much money worrying about my braces showing.

Back in March 2008, I had ceramics - "clear" put on the top. I put the word clear in quotation marks because they are so not clear. In fact, they are bigger and more noticeable if anything. I was so dissapointed when I was first braced. Then there was the issue of the ligs staining. Ugh, again something nobody tells you when you are deciding whether to go with ceramic or metal. Stained ligs make your teeth look so dingy and yellow. So, then you're told to choose color ligs. Well, whats the point of going with ceramic if you're just going to have colors on your teeth? Ceramics cost more money so it's just a waste in my opinion.

I had metal put on my bottoms in the beginning, they were not that hard to get used to, all you need is some wax and you're fine. And they are cheaper!

I went through 7 months of being so self-conscious of my braces. My ortho and staff being a total jerk didn't help my situation.

So then, I decided to get a different ortho. There happened to be an ortho by my new house that offered Lingual "iBraces" so I thought I'd give that place a shot. The ortho was really nice too. So since I was getting new iBraces for my uppers (Getting both top & bottom iBraced would have been $8000, something I could not afford!) I thought I would try out a new "ceramic" type of braces that didn't have ligs. Great, right? Not really, they have metal 'doors' on them, so they really aren't that invisible either. iBraces have a catch too - they cause your mouth alot of pain and mess up your speech. So really, theres pros and cons to every type of braces.

I mentioned in the beginning of my post that I wish I would have just gone with damons and I meant that, sigh. If only I had a time machine!

#23 Post by **real2** » Mon Feb 16, 2009 9:05 pm

My ortho was consistent and very adamant about Inspire ICE brackets taking more time than typical metal brackets.

My ortho whom has been in the business since 1994 told me, they would take longer, and cost more, and it didn't matter who I was (young, old, basic case, complicated case), the time-frame would take longer.

Although I love the optimism presented by my ortho's every visit (everything looks good, everything is excellent, your looking great

)

As such, I still took the Inspires

What is time anyways, rite?

#24 Post by **acd** » Mon Feb 16, 2009 10:00 pm

Looking back I was told that my treatment with ceramic brackets would push my treatment back but I can document that the delays weren't based only on the brackets but on my schedule and my orthodontist. I could have gotten my braces off on February 9th but bacause of my travel schedule had to move it to February 23rd. There have been several appointments where instead of going in after 6 weeks I went in after 7 weeks for an adjustment--adding more time to the treatment. The bottom line is that there are more things than bracket type that can add to treatment time. For me the thing that finally pushed me over the edge to get braces was the ability to have clear upper brackets. Would all metal brackets have shortened mt treatment? Maybe, but being available when my orthodontist was would have had more effect regardless of if I had ceramic or metal braces. I'll bet if I went through and looked at all of my appointments that had to pushed out a week (or two weeks in the case of my debanding appointment) I could have shaved off at least two months off of my now 27+ month treatment time.

#25 Post by **Miss Smiley** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 1:02 am

I was told my treatment time would be 3 years to 3 1/2 years and I could choose metal or clear. I am almost at 2 years, other than a few bracket snafoos with both clear and metal, I have had a possible debanding appointment for the past 2-3 months. My ortho has been in practice since 1982 but he did not stress any big time differences in which brackets I chose. He said maybe a month or two but nothing of much significance. And here I am being a pain about wanting my midline centered by half a hair, less than 1mm.