Orthodontics and oral surgery...yay (insert sarcasm here)
So the boy is finally getting his full set of braces in a few days and I guess he's ok with it. He said if he's getting braces, he wanted them before school starts (which is soon here), so we are making that happen. His dental progress has been slow and somewhat steady and we've known since he was about eight that he would have crowding and probably need braces. He didn't lose his first tooth until he was eight and had to have the next three or four pulled because the adult tooth would grow in behind the baby tooth.
Fast forward to about eleven or twelve when he finally had the top four, front adult teeth in place. They didn't grow in straight and they were actually (according to the xray) blocking the permanent canines from coming down, so he went into phase 1 braces; just braces on the top four front teeth. The goal was to get those straight and give the adult canines room to grow in and push out the baby canines. Over time he lost more baby teeth and things were looking ok. The braces came off in early 2017, at the end of 8th grade, I think. So we and the orthodontist have just been waiting since then for the last baby teeth to fall out. I believe there were seven baby teeth left at that point.
Fast forward to now. He still had three baby teeth left, one of which is a canine and unfortunately the adult canine is up in the gum and is angled a bit. The other two are molars and the permanent molars are already in the mouth and sitting next to the baby teeth. Luckily one of the molars fell out about a week ago (yay, won't have to pay to extract that one!), so now only two teeth to deal with. The ortho had recommended earlier this year that we pull all three and we wanted to wait until summer to get it done. My son has been having an issue with the idea of pulling the canine and having a missing tooth near the front of his mouth and I'm glad the ortho understands that. He agreed to leave it for now and go ahead and put the braces on!
So the boy goes on Monday to have the molar taken out and then he goes Tuesday to get braces on. My son and I do agree on one thing; we want to get this process going so it can be over! Anyone else dealing with orthodontics? What have been your experiences?
Fast forward to about eleven or twelve when he finally had the top four, front adult teeth in place. They didn't grow in straight and they were actually (according to the xray) blocking the permanent canines from coming down, so he went into phase 1 braces; just braces on the top four front teeth. The goal was to get those straight and give the adult canines room to grow in and push out the baby canines. Over time he lost more baby teeth and things were looking ok. The braces came off in early 2017, at the end of 8th grade, I think. So we and the orthodontist have just been waiting since then for the last baby teeth to fall out. I believe there were seven baby teeth left at that point.
Fast forward to now. He still had three baby teeth left, one of which is a canine and unfortunately the adult canine is up in the gum and is angled a bit. The other two are molars and the permanent molars are already in the mouth and sitting next to the baby teeth. Luckily one of the molars fell out about a week ago (yay, won't have to pay to extract that one!), so now only two teeth to deal with. The ortho had recommended earlier this year that we pull all three and we wanted to wait until summer to get it done. My son has been having an issue with the idea of pulling the canine and having a missing tooth near the front of his mouth and I'm glad the ortho understands that. He agreed to leave it for now and go ahead and put the braces on!
So the boy goes on Monday to have the molar taken out and then he goes Tuesday to get braces on. My son and I do agree on one thing; we want to get this process going so it can be over! Anyone else dealing with orthodontics? What have been your experiences?
Comments
Post a Comment