Is there anything you can do to speed your treatment up?

[guilder68]

I just got my braces a few days ago. Apparently I could have them as long as 30 months. Is there anything you can do to speed things up?

[Tyrantblade]

I don't think there's anything that is proven, I would just say do your part, by which I mean if they give you anything that needs you to follow directions do it.

Like if you are ever given rubber bands/elastics, you need to wear them as often as they say and switch them out several times a day, not doing so slows you down.

Sorry to say idk if anything can speed up progress.

[SingleJawMelb]

No. Your teeth need to move, bones and whatever need to reform. You won't notice your braces after a while.

[Shelleyt]

Check with your ortho about acceledent (which I am using- though I haven't noticed too much change in my first two months). Downsides are it can be kind of pricey- I will say it does help with pain from adjustments. I was able to get rid of pain within 1.5 days from getting them on and both adjustments.

Other options are propel therapy or wilckidontics (if you are having any sort of oral surgery in conjunction with your treatment.)

[Beckett]

Best thing is to just follow your ortho's orders to the letter. Don't think you know better than he does and do something differently. He's trained, you're not. Follow the rules. 30 months is a long time, it's a good opportunity to work on our patience, right?

[Bracingmyself901]

I am currently experimenting with the use of specific vitamins (vitamin D and C) and amino acids (l-arginine and l-citrulline) in oral supplement form for accelerated orthodontics movement. I am taking these specific vitamins/amino acids because I did some aggressive literature review and found multiple peer reviewed studies that found that taking these supplements increased bone modeling and significantly (statistically) increased tooth movement in animal models (non-human studies but doesn't mean they don't have any merit for human treatment as teeth across mammals are pretty similar in structure and development).

I have large access to a lot of scientific journals because I work in scientific research myself, so you might not be able to read the full article like I can, but here are a few links to the studies I am referring to (also if you're truly interested in reading the full paper I could possibly email you PDFs/I am writing my own comprehensive literature review of these studies and will publicly publish the review and the details of my own case and can send you my own writing, just let me know ):

Effects of Vitamin D:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 0688900522

Simpler explanation for the less science minded: In order for tooth movement to take place, there are special type of cells (osteoclasts and osteoblasts) that are recruited to the site where force is applied on the teeth (as you know that force is in the form of traditional braces or clear trays). The specials cells are the biological basis for why orthodontists can move teeth around (also called bone remodeling). Now, when you increase the available vitamin D, you get faster recruitment of these special cells to the teeth and thus accelerated tooth movement. In this study the group of rats given daily vitamin D (locally but I'd imagine you'd find a similar effect with actual ingestion) had their teeth move 60% more in the same timeframe compared to the group who did not receive the vitamin at all.

Effects of Vitamin C:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4754566/

Simple explanation: Stem cells are cells that do not yet have a "fate" (for instance a stem cell has the potential to turn into a skin cell or a heart cell or a hair cell etc, it all depends on what genes are turned on and genes are influenced by what is surrounding the cell). It is known that available Vitamin C can cause stem cells to "turn into" osteoblasts (those special cells required for tooth movement as explained above!) via a number of mechanisms. Ultimately they found that the animals in the vitamin C group showed significantly more tooth movement than the no vitamin c group and also should significant increase in the second special cell (osteoclasts) required for movement.

Effects of L-arginine (l-citrulline is its precursor)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/12071604/

Simple explanation: It is well known that those special cells that make tooth movement possible need nitric oxide (a small gas molecule) to function effectively and efficiently. L-citrulline is a precursor to L-arginine (meaning you can produce l-arg from l-citr) and L-arginine is a precursor to nitric oxide. In this study they found the daily addition of l-arginine to the rats diet resulted in a significant increase in tooth movement compared to the no l-arginine group (l arginine saw 0.7mm movement while no l arginine group only saw a 0.4mm movement).

This is just three papers, but I found at least a dozen with similar outcomes. These three were all rat studies (some of the others were in cats and rabbits) and so obviously you have to question whether you would get similar results with humans. But the beautiful thing is that all of these supplements can be purchased over the counter with no prescription. And thousands of people take these supplements everyday so I see no harm in experimenting on myself. I think a major reason why there is a lack of human studies/data because the research isn't profitable because the supplements can be easily accessed by anyone. In fact you could forget doing supplements and try to establish a diet rich in these things.

Anyways hope this was a bit helpful or at least got you thinking! I've been taking these supplements for 5 weeks and been in ceramic braces for 4 weeks and do think that I have some incredibly fast movement. My first adjustment is in two weeks and I'm excited to hear what my ortho thinks about my movement rate since he has been in the field for decadesand probably have seen the slowest of the slowest and the fastest of the fastest.

[Bracingmyself901]

Oh I also forget to add that NSAIDs (Advil) impair tooth movement according to a number of studies (one of them: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/11197570/), but acetaminophen (Tylenol) does not. So I avoid Advil at all cost despite it being the more effective painkiller (the price you have to pay for faster movement). I know whenever someone brings up the data stating Advil decreases the rate of movement people love to chime in that they took it throughout their entire treatment and their teeth moved just fine. Well yes it doesnt completely halt movement, but now one can only imagine how much faster their treatment would have gone if they didn't use it so much...the world may never know! Lol

Anyways I'm not taking any chances, so I'm going to base my behavior on the data, especially because it's only a mild inconvience.

[SingleJawMelb]

Oh I also forget to add that NSAIDs (Advil) impair tooth movement according to a number of studies (one of them: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/11197570/), but acetaminophen (Tylenol) does not. So I avoid Advil at all cost despite it being the more effective painkiller (the price you have to pay for faster movement). I know whenever someone brings up the data stating Advil decreases the rate of movement people love to chime in that they took it throughout their entire treatment and their teeth moved just fine. Well yes it doesnt completely halt movement, but now one can only imagine how much faster their treatment would have gone if they didn't use it so much...the world may never know! Lol

Anyways I'm not taking any chances, so I'm going to base my behavior on the data, especially because it's only a mild inconvience.

Might be best to use generic name, because yes ibuprofen can slow treatment but unless you are popping them for more than a few days I don't think the time is that significant.

I only had pain a few times, so not sure Pill popping is an issue.

[Len]

The only way you can help speeding the treatment is never missing the appointments, trying not to break any wire/rubberband/bracket and that's about it. Of course, you can always break something without even being your fault, but well luck goes a long way.

[angelina]

My treatment seems to be going pretty fast and I'll be out of them before my estimated date. I've been wearing elastics as instructed (thankfully in my case only at night!), not eating things like nuts which can break brackets, and keeping them as clean as I can. I suspect good dental hygiene is a positive thing because if you need dental work during the process it probably won't help.

[JCloNY]

Check out this thread as it has quite a bit of information - http://www.archwired.com/phpbb2/viewtop ... 1&start=90

Good luck.

[beachit13]

Definitely ask about Acceledent. Not everyone is a candidate but if you are, it can cut your treatment time in half (which it did for me, yay!). You use it for 20 minutes a day but it's a bit pricey (I paid $925 and now have a brand new device that I wish I could sell to recover some of the cost of the original device).

[Bondja57]

Totally agree AcceleDent cut my time in braces by 4 months. To me it was worth the $800.00 initial cost. My Ortho is also refunding me $200.00 for return of the device.