How long to level?
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How long to level?
I am sure it's different for everybody, but in general how long should it take to level out teeth? My bottoms are STILL leveling and I'm over 1 1/2 years into this.. actually 1 year 10 months to be exact! I have been on the thickest (I think) wire for quite some time now, maybe 10 months?? For most of the time, my ortho was trying to retract my teeth, but those finished up a few months ago. Basically my bottoms look like a roller coaster, with the anterior teeth being a little higher and then gradually dipping a little on both sides and then the molars all the way back go back up a little to about the same height as the anterior teeth. It's not nearly as bad looking as it looked about 10 months ago ... It was a lot more wavy looking! But, in my eyes there is still quite a bit to go. I'm losing my patience!!!
It depends on the person really.
When they say leveling and aligning, I don't think they mean literally your teeth will be absolutely straight on a level plane. I think they mean the teeth will be leveled relative to each other in relation to the shape of your jaws. So if you have asymmetry, your teeth are initially going to reflect that asymmetry, probably more so than they did to begin with since the starting position of your teeth are more "adapted" to try and level the jaw asymmetry on their own.
When they say leveling and aligning, I don't think they mean literally your teeth will be absolutely straight on a level plane. I think they mean the teeth will be leveled relative to each other in relation to the shape of your jaws. So if you have asymmetry, your teeth are initially going to reflect that asymmetry, probably more so than they did to begin with since the starting position of your teeth are more "adapted" to try and level the jaw asymmetry on their own.
I'm a little over a month in, and my tops are nearly level, but my bottoms are going to take quite some time. One of my (2nd) premolars on the bottom is quite wedged between the teeth next to it (this is one of the spots where I had 2 baby teeth and my (adult) 1st premolar extracted.
My top teeth have been leveling out quite quickly - I'm in Damons and I've had the wire changed 2x in the 5 weeks I've been in them (I've had to go in 3x to get more material added to my buildups on my molars so my top front teeth won't hit the brackets on the bottom and they've changed the wire a couple times).
Unfortunately, until my front teeth move so they won't hit the brackets anymore, I don't think that my ortho will want to get too aggressive with moving my bottom teeth around. I've already got build-up material on 6 of my molars!
My top teeth have been leveling out quite quickly - I'm in Damons and I've had the wire changed 2x in the 5 weeks I've been in them (I've had to go in 3x to get more material added to my buildups on my molars so my top front teeth won't hit the brackets on the bottom and they've changed the wire a couple times).
Unfortunately, until my front teeth move so they won't hit the brackets anymore, I don't think that my ortho will want to get too aggressive with moving my bottom teeth around. I've already got build-up material on 6 of my molars!
Fosterp, it seems that every picture I see of a braced mouth, especially towards the end of treatment, the bottoms are really quite level. I'm sure they are not literally straight but there is no weird dip like a roller coaster. Shouldn't the wires be fairly parallel to one another .. top and bottom wires? Mine are not. They are much much closer to one another in the front/anterior, and then towards the molars they are a little further apart, and then closer yet again at the last molar. It definitely doesn't look normal and I honestly do expect that they run pretty perfectly parallel to one another, and it won't do that unless they are fairly "straight" on the bottom as they are on the top.