IMPACTED CANINES CLUB

[ditsy]

With mine I had the chain links and then there was quite an obvious difference between the chain and the actual plate/loop that the chain was attached to and that was stuck onto my tooth. If yours is the same it could well be that the link is your last and the next one through will be the loop from the bracket. Xxx

[ditsy]

[UltraViolet]

I am so jealous of your progress @Ditsy.

How long has it been since your exposure?

[ditsy]

Just under a year and a half. My tooth is fully in place now but the pulling down has messed up my other teeth which means even though I have a full set of adult teeth, I now have to wait until they manage to get them all back in place. I am not happy with my teeth as they are at the moment. They look far worse now than they did before sadly. But I have everything crossed that they will sort it out but my appointments are so far apart its hard to see the progress at the moment x

[UltraViolet]

Oh yeah, my ortho warned me about that. I have lots of space for my teeth to squeeze in without damaging the others but one is very near the root of its neighbour so hoping it doesn't get messed up too bad.

Been in brace for 5 months but my exposure was recent so no progress for me yet. At least none that I can see.

I am glad your teeth came out though! That seems to be the biggest struggle.

[belgent]

Sadly that was not my tooth, just gums. Since that appointment my 5th link is now visible but still no tooth. My exposure was now almost 2 months ago (on Aug 1) and I only have 7-8 months left of my treatment according to the orthodontist (24 months total) so I'm really hoping my tooth comes in by then

[belgent]

This is my tooth as of today, July 28. 4.5 links are now visible. My last appointment was on July 18 when 3 links were left visible after the chain was tightened. My chain is moving very quickly and loosening up fast, but no other movement can be seen. My next appointment is scheduled for Aug 25, but I'm thinking about trying to reschedule it sooner because of how fast my chain is moving. Is this a good idea? Any feedback on the photo would be helpful too

http://s86.photobucket.com/user/patbelm ... p.jpg.html

[ditsy]

Awww yehhh!!! Looking good!!!! So that's the start of the plate link poking through, if you can forward your appointments and your ortho is happy for you to do that then I would go for it x

[belgent]

I went and got my chain tightened today. And Ditsy, what is the plate link? How can you tell that's what's coming up? My regular appointment is still going to be on the 25th but we will see how much this newly tightened chain moves until then.

[ditsy]

Have a look at my pic above, the link on the bracket itself is a little chunkier and square and the edge, it looks different compared to the normal links. Did your ortho say much about it? Xx

[belgent]

No the ortho said nothing about it. I had two links taken off and my chain is extremely tight and is even causing me some aching in my mouth which has not happened before. Also, in pictures it looks like the chain is pulling my wire downward. I don't know if any of that is good, but it is definitely different. I still can't fully tell if my last link visible is the plate link you are talking about either but I'm going to hope so
Today, Aug 3 after tightening:
http://s86.photobucket.com/user/patbelm ... o.jpg.html

[Shelleyt]

Checking in!

I have a somewhat interesting case with a long story. So here it goes! I am one of those lucky people who had not 1, not 2, but FOUR impacted canines. Unfortunately no dentist raised the alarm soon enough when I was younger, so i didn't get braces for the first time to try and fix the problem until I was 16. Two of my teeth fell out on their own and the ortho was able to easily pull down the upper left canine and half (yes only half) of the lower right canine, but the upper right and lower left baby teeth remained in place. My parents unfortunately could not afford the exposure procedure at the time, so I ended my treatment with 2.5 impacted teeth. Strangely, my teeth looked pretty great. Everything except for the half grown in canine was completely straight and looked good.

Fast forward 7 years and that's no longer the case. My upper right baby tooth canine eventually came out and the tooth is only about 1/5 of the way out, though there's enough to get a bracket on there. I currently have bonding on that tooth for aesthetics, but keeping up with that is hard so it doesn't look great. One of my upper incisors has also rotated a bit, but uppers are mostly straight. The lower left canine is completely impacted and the tooth is very far below the gum line and slightly centered- not in a great position to come up. The bottom right tooth is still 1/2 the way in but very crooked. There's just not enough space down there! Also, my bite is slightly off center, favoring the right side, and is also slightly over. This is causing too much wear to my back molars. Overall, I'm not happy with my smile and definitely think I deserve to have a nice one since I'm a happy person!

Due to all the above, I'm again entering the world of braces. I have a lot of self image issues and am also client facing in my work in an industry where I already struggle with being one of the youngest, so I'm going with all lingual braces. My ortho specializes in lingual braces and adult cases, so I'm confident she will do well. I have already had my impressions using the itero scanner and I'll be fitted in 4-6 weeks. 2-4 months after that, I am going to have the lower left canine exposed and the baby tooth removed. The other 2 partially impacted teeth are down enough to be bracketed off the bat, so they should come down quickly, but the lower left is the major culprit and question mark. I'm nervous it won't come up because of the positioning and my age, but hoping for the best. I will also be using acceledent and having the wilckidontics procedure performed on the impacted tooth during the exposure procedure. Right now my total estimate is at about 24 months, but she predicts with the wilckidontics and acceledent, we could be looking at 14-15 months depending on how that tooth activates. The top will likely only take 6-8 months per her estimate, but maybe longer depending on how the bite lines up.

Im excited to finally be doing something about my smile and admittedly feel really good that despite the financial circumstances of my childhood I can finally afford to fix my teeth myself, but I'm very nervous as well. I know it's vain and ridiculous, but I'm still somehow nervous that everyone will know I have braces. Believe me I know that's absurd because who really cares, but it's still on my brain. Due to a lot of very awful bullying in my childhood, I really struggle with self image issues, so I'm honestly struggling with the idea of doing braces again. I am also worried about that darned fourth tooth not coming up despite this pricey effort! Finally, I know linguals aren't the most comfortable experience and I'm worried about adjusting and the infamous lisp! Hopefully I adjust quickly. I talk a lot!

Anyways that's my long drawn out story! I'll keep updating as things progress. Good luck to everyone's wonky impacted teeth! Who knew there were so many of us!

[UltraViolet]

Interesting story @Shelleyt

From what I gather from your post, as soon as enough tooth is visible to put a bracket on the tooth it moves faster down? Makes sense. My one tooth is shining through the gums but the other one is still way up.... Although the gold chain is pretty loose now and I have to go in on the 22nd for another adjustment.

Good Luck on your journey!

[Braceyourself7]

Hello my fellow mates of the impacted canines club! Reading this blog over the last couple of months has really helped me along this journey so far, so I decided to officially join. Hopefully my story will help give support to others too! I'm a 24 year old female, and I have bilaterally impacted upper canines. I found out about this when I was 15, but my parents couldn't really afford to do anything about it at the time and we were told by the dentist that we had "plenty of time to deal with it." So now I'm in a place where I can afford to do something about it. After 3 ortho consults with mixed opinions it was 2-1 in favor of trying to fix and save my adult canines. So on 4/21/16 I took the plunge. I took a 3D Xray and I was fitted with a set of metal braces on the top only. Along with that I was given a TPA bar on the top of my mouth. Which was a complain to get use to for awhile. I still get indents on my tongue from it. I didn't have over crowding, had already had my wisdom teeth taken out, my teeth are pretty small and straight, so I was given a time line of 24 months total. The braces themselves weren't that bad. I got use to it quickly. My ortho was anxious and stoked to start "pulling on those suckers," so 3 short months later I had my exposure surgery. Which I did awake with local anesthetic and I burned through it so quickly I had to be re injected 25 times. Procedure lasted 2.5 hours and it was honestly pretty horrible. I'd recommend being put out for it. I have a pretty good pain tolerance and I'm in the medical field and can deal with blood and nasty stuff, but it was gruesome and unpleasant. I had my baby canines extracted at that time as well. There were sutures coming from the roof of my mouth through the front gums of my teeth, which looked like spider legs. The gold chain was placed during the procedure and about 12 days later I was in my orthos office starting the activation process. My ortho is seeing me back every 10 days to tighten/active them. My first activation hurt like a mother. I remember almost tearing up when they first started pulling the rubber bands through the chain. And after I left all I could say for the next 2 hours was how surprised I was at how much it hurt lol. It wasn't intolerable but it was more then I thought. I just went back a week ago for my 10 day f/u and both of my canines had moved an entire chain link so far. They reactivated them again and I'm already due to go back in 3 days. This time when they tightened it it didn't hurt as much. Which idk if that's a good or bad thing. Guess we will see. Being 24 and toothless has definitely given me some what of a rollercoaster. I'm self conscious about it and basically avoid smiling the best I can lol. But I'm a really smiley person and it's difficult especially when you work with patients all day everyday and need to be personable. My ortho is going to start taking X-rays more often to track the progress and see how well they are responding, if at all. Which I'm excited for because it will keep me motivated. Anyway, long post but let me know if anyone has any questions! :)

[UltraViolet]

Hi @Braceyourself7!

Welcome

So you are going every 10 days for tightening? How do you manage that? Is anyone else going as frequently? I am curious how fast the tooth moves in that case and if it is safe for the older gang.

I just got back from tightening today, both teeth moved the one higher up only moved 1 link the other one about 2.5 links so there is progress. My ortho tightened the chain and this time l can really feel it. It's quite painful.

But I am back on 6 weeks apart visits coz my ortho is scared of putting too much pressure on my teeth. She says the cells and gums need to heal and adjust to the change slowly so we are taking it a bit slower.