To Sazymania Re: Does all of this sound right?? Am a little worried

[Guest guest]

Samara,

Thanks for the compliment but I doubt I know as much as I make it

seem. I think I know a lot from my OWN experience and that's a whole

different ball park. In terms of addressing your question about how

the braces you have on now are working in a different way than the

ones you had when you were younger it really depends on your

particular bite. In my case I know that my ortho literally pulled my

back teeth forward. In other words, whereas they used to ist far

back, after 4 months I could feel a space in the back from how they

had moved. Of course this meant that my front teeth also moved

forward and so my open bite looked temporarily worse. The important

thing is that once they did the surgery, my back teeth were forward

enough to sit down on where my lower jaw was newly positioned. Does

that make sense? When I was younger instead they just tried to make

all my teeth straight which they succeeded in doing and also close my

open bite by simply tilting the teeth forward or backward in such a

way that they close the bite.

I'm trying to think of a visual way of explaining this to you. Think

of it as that whereas before your ortho just worked with what he had

now your ortho is working with a vision that your jaw will be

different in the future i.e. in a new position. So he is positioning

your teeth for that new perfect position of the jaw. Whereas before

your ortho would have just done as best as possible to make your

teeth look as good as possible with the jaw position that you had.

ALSO and VERY important, I don't know how old you were when you last

had braces, but your jaw may well have grown since then. This can add

to the difference in the treatments an ortho has to do. In terms of

the equipment they use, it's all the same! Same brackets, same wires

same o-rings. It's just the direction in which the ortho pulls the

pressure on the teeth that will be different.

I hope that makes sense. It's a very basic explanation from my own

experience and by no means a text book answer. I'm sure if you ask

your ortho he'll explain it to you. I made mine sit down and explain

it to me several times over using diagrams and my molds.

Sara

> > So, as some of you may know, I began posting a little over a

month

> > ago because I initially had planned on getting plastic surgery to

> > shorten my chin. I went to two plastic surgeons, both of them

also

> > had dental degrees. One said he could do just a chin reduction

> > (genioplasty) and another said that he refused to do just a

> > genioplasty and that I needed to have jaw surgery. Anyway, I

opted

> > to do the jaw surgery. I started my search by going to 3

different

> > orthos...they all agreed about the jaw surgery. I decided on an

> > ortho that i liked, then I went to see an oral surgeon. I didn't

> > have any molds, xrays or photos at the time, but I told the oral

> > surgeon that I was getting them all done tomorrow. I asked if he

> > needed to see them before I got my braces on to make sure I

needed

> > the surgery, etc. He told me no and that I should just go ahead

> and

> > get the braces on. So i got my molds and xrays done at this one

> > place bc they were cheaper, and then i brought them to the place

> > where I was getting my braces on. I brought them in the day I

got

> my

> > braces on. The ortho only looked at the xrays for a minute, and

> then

> > the braces went on. I just think its weird that he didn't look

at

> my

> > mouth or my xrays a lot, determine how much my jaw would have to

be

> > moved etc. I guess what I am trying to say is...shouldn't there

be

> a

> > bit more planning on his part? I had braces on in my teens to

try

> > and fix my bite, but apparantly when you get the braces on before

> > surgery, my bite will start to look worse?? So is there

something

> > different about this braces process than the other time I had

> them?

> > I seems that they were put on in exactly the same way, same

> position,

> > etc. Does anyone get what I'm trying to say? Not even sure if I

> get

> > what I'm trying to say.

> >

> > Thanks,

> > Samara

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