28 years old and in Damon Braces - see my progress!

[whitney555]

Great progress!

[LittleSern]

Ok, it's been almost 2 months since my last post, so time for an update.

Over the past two months I have been going to the orthodontist almost weekly to get my powerchain replaced in order to close the spaces between my canines and laterals. My ortho wanted to close those up before reassessing and moving things around. Topics we have been discussing:

- At some point he will be repositioning some of the brackets - as you can see one of my front teeth is lower than the other. I think one whole side of my face's teeth are lower.
- We also discussed potentially putting the reverse curve (RC) wire back in because I felt like my front teeth could afford to move up a little more.
- Super exciting: my ortho says he thinks I will be able to get my braces off before the holidays!! (Before November)

So, finally, at my visit yesterday, we put the RC wire back in and I'll be back in 2 weeks to re-assess to ensure my smile arc is not flattening too much. I'm currently wearing the strongest elastics (Moose) in class II config to help reduce the overbite.

What do you guys think? Do you think it was a good idea to put the RC wire back in? Here is a pic from yesterday's visit while the wire was out. My gums were more swollen than usual:

[ItsFreyja]

Looking good! I certainly think you have some room to keep pushing those upper incisors but you have made a ton of progress on that front already.

[LittleSern]

Last week I was scheduled to check in with my ortho to see if we wanted to keep the reverse curve wire in. Well, I got a call from the office and they said my ortho was OOO on medical leave until further notice and that his dad (who is also an orthodontist and actually started the practice) would be filling in for him.

I went in last Wednesday and was interested to see what a new orthodontist would think of my progress. He said he wanted to put in even more reverse curve and asked the assistant to put in another RC wire with torque. When she put it in, 3 of the front brackets broke when she tried to close the doors (these are clear damon braces). She said that the clear damon braces can break when too much pressure is put on them. The ortho had to come back and re-assess. He decided to take off all of the brackets on the front four teeth and do some repositioning, which had to be done anyway at some point (note the unevenness in my last post), and he said they probably weren't going to be able to add that wire in due to the nature of the brackets.

After adding new brackets on the front four teeth, he put me in a super weak wire and said to come back in 4 weeks. I have to say I was disappointed. Instead of keeping my RC wire in, I'm now down to a super weak wire and it's just a waiting game until my next appt. Hopefully my regular ortho is there when I go back. With that said, I'm curious why his dad wanted to put a stronger torque RC wire in - why didn't my original ortho think of that? Maybe he knew about the weaker brackets.

Anyway... that's it for now.

[MrPlenty]

Great progress! I'm also curious about the approach the other ortho took. But all we can do is ask them the questions in regards to why they do what they do. Otherwise we waste our time pondering and assuming.

[LittleSern]

The past four weeks have been kind of torturous for me. Since the weaker, round wire was put in and the power chains were taken off, my teeth started reverting back to going downward and inward again, reversing the progress I saw with the reverse curve wire. On top of that, my teeth developed a bunch of gaps, including in between the front two teeth. I felt so ugly embarrassed all month and at times I wanted to cry. It is incredibly frustrating to see the progress you waited so long for be undone, and I was shocked at how quickly it happened.

I went back this last Tuesday and my regular ortho was still not back, so it was his dad again. He just bumped me up to a 16x25 copper wire and put some power chains back on to close up the gaps. It's been almost a week and the gaps are closed again, but I still feel like my RC wire changes were undone and my smile is GUMMIER than it was before he had to replace the brackets. I told him I was concerned about that and he kind of brushed me off and said I can't worry about things from "appointment to appointment". Which also frustrated me. He told me to come back in 4 weeks again. My regular ortho will be back by then so I'm anxious to see what he will say.

Overall I just feel disheartened and ugly. And kind of hopeless. Probably overreacting but just being honest.

[cinndiid]

Wow it's amazing to see the progress!

[LittleSern]

Ok, time for another update. I've now been in braces for almost 19 months.

My teeth continued to look worse and worse. Finally my regular ortho came back and I could tell he was unhappy with the direction the other ortho took things - he said he wanted to reposition the brackets again. He even apologized.

He had me put the reverse curve wire back in, like he had done the last time I saw him before the other ortho broke my brackets. He had me come back again in 3 weeks to see where things were. At that visit, he said he wanted to leave the RC wire in for another 3 weeks and then we would reposition 4 brackets in the front again. Basically, we were undoing what the other ortho did! As far as I am concerned, the other ortho caused me to waste several months of time. I am *so glad* my regular ortho is back.

Last Friday, we took the RC wire out and evaluated the position of my teeth. The front four teeth were too low compared to the rest of them, so he repositioned those. Things are looking *much* better after just 1 week and I'm finally feeling happy again. I asked my ortho how much longer he thought I had before debracing and he said he didn't feel he could make that estimate accurately yet. Oh well.

When he was repositioning the brackets, I got to see my front 4 teeth without any brackets on - it's crazy how much bigger my teeth look without the brackets. I can get an idea of how my teeth will look in the end and I'm really pleased with the result:

Before braces, and during bracket repositioning 1 week ago:




Here is a nice before and current side by side. You can see how my teeth are no longer angled inward:



Also, my class two bite is correcting nicely with the elastics.. here is a progression:

[LittleSern]

It's been a while. I've now been in braces for 21 months. The past few months, I have been wearing a reverse curve wire to bring the front teeth back up again. We took that out a couple of weeks ago and now are just waiting for the space to close between my laterals and canines before doing the finishing touches so that I can then be done! He said that as soon as the spaces are closed, it should be only a month or two more of finishing touches.

I'm super happy with the way my teeth look right now, so hopefully they stay this way and only get better with the finishing stage.

[mapleleafman888]

Awesome progress! Looking real nice!

[Rockie2032]

Your smile looks amazing!!!

[Ramm87]

Fantastic progress

[LittleSern]

Figured I'd post this progress pic! I have a feeling in about two weeks we'll start doing the finishing touches.

Just did this before and after comparison and am happy with the results so far! One of the things I'm happy about is that my upper lip doesn't get as thin when I smile. I think that has to do with the fact that the teeth are no longer angled so inward, which previously caused my gums to push out a bit right where my upper lip would lay. That "ledge" pushing outward would cause the upper lip to be forced above it, causing the upper lip to be thinner when I smiled. I think the profile looks significantly better as well.

I'm also looking forward to see the gumminess reduce even more when the gum swelling goes down after the brace are off.

I think I'll likely be out of braces by the end of March, hopefully! That would put me at a total treatment time of 24 months. It seems like such a long time for these changes, but most of the changes were actually in fixing my overbite. Moving those front teeth back in line has taken so long.

[LittleSern]

Had an appointment today and the ortho confirmed all of my spaces are FINALLY closed! We started on finishing touches today with wire bends. First thing he did was bring up my right canine a bit as it is lower than the left one. There was also some turning of the upper 2nd tooth on the right. I'll be back in a week to get the next tweaks done!

[tillybrace]

Had an appointment today and the ortho confirmed all of my spaces are FINALLY closed! We started on finishing touches today with wire bends. First thing he did was bring up my right canine a bit as it is lower than the left one. There was also some turning of the upper 2nd tooth on the right. I'll be back in a week to get the next tweaks done!

absolutely amazing progress, your smile is looking beutiful