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Author Topic: Dream Treatment  (Read 14739 times)

Offline Velteau

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Dream Treatment
« on: 27. March 2020, 00:33:06 AM »
So, I've always fantasised about this topic but never really had anyone to share it with, until I came across this forum. I'm a big braces aficionado, but I'm ambivalent about whether I would like to undergo the treatments I dream about. On the one hand, it would be a unique experience that I've always desired, but on the other, I'd have to live through a torturous, humiliating ordeal of my own design. Still, if I were given the opportunity to plan out a treatment for myself, I reckon I'd do it.

For me it would have to be gradual, slowly building up for years but never turning back. First just braces, pure and simple, with maybe a couple of elastics. But then would come powerchains, increasingly more elastics, and maybe even lingual braces to complement the regular ones. Then it'd all be replaced by fullband brackets, the elastics would turn to fixed springs, and finally a facebow would be installed and wired in. After some time, there would come a second facebow for the lower jaw, also wired in. After that it takes some creativity to fit anything else in, but you could imagine a cemented, full-metal twin-block retainer, and maybe even a third and fourth sets of headgear — perhaps fixed J-hooks in addition to the regular facebows. The more the merrier.

So, I turn the question to you all: what would your dream orthodontic treatment be like? Would you like it all installed straight away, or are you like me and would prefer to pace the process to feel and get used to every change before the next one? How outlandish would your appliances be? I want to know how other minds that think like mine would approach this delicious fantasy.
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Offline High Myopic

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Re: Dream Treatment
« Reply #1 on: 27. March 2020, 02:36:23 AM »

Offline m1090y

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Re: Dream Treatment
« Reply #2 on: 27. March 2020, 03:06:24 AM »
The simple way to get molds is to get a teeth grinding guard from the dentist.  When they deliver it, ask them how long they keep the molds.  If they say it is not for ever, ask if they mind if you keep them yourself for your own records.  The only issue that if you don't have health insurance to cover the teeth grinding guard, then it may cost more than the retainer that you eventually send away for.  Possibly you could tell the dentist that you can't afford one through him/her, but if you could get molds, then you could get one cheap over the Internet and that it would be better than nothing.

Offline High Myopic

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Re: Dream Treatment
« Reply #3 on: 27. March 2020, 03:09:47 AM »
Should I tell him that I do have some very old impression from when I was much younger and could I ask to have new impressions so that I can see how my mouth has changed?   I would bring the old impressions along with me.   Would that work?  Can they be made out of something more durable than plaster?  Like metal or acrylic?  I would hate to have them get broken or chipped if I shipped them to the braces shop in the long future when ordering a new huge retainer. 

Offline m1090y

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Re: Dream Treatment
« Reply #4 on: 27. March 2020, 12:55:47 PM »
I actually did that.  I compared molds from two points in my life after changing dentists and he seemed impressed that I had kept them to do that.   You are right that they are quite fragile and you have to package them in lots of really supportive packing material like bubble wrap.

Offline High Myopic

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Re: Dream Treatment
« Reply #5 on: 27. March 2020, 15:29:15 PM »
I will be showing my old impressions to the same dentist that I have been going to my whole life.   That should still work for hopefully getting new impressions?

Offline bracessd

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Re: Dream Treatment
« Reply #6 on: 27. March 2020, 17:09:24 PM »
@velteau My dream treatment would start with a removable appliance like a twin block or activator/bionator, followed by an expander. I would then get full braces with a herbst appliance. Combo headgear would be added in at some point, as well as various elastics and power chains. Once completed, I would get hawley retainers.

Offline Velteau

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Re: Dream Treatment
« Reply #7 on: 27. March 2020, 17:23:26 PM »
@velteau My dream treatment would start with a removable appliance like a twin block or activator/bionator, followed by an expander. I would then get full braces with a herbst appliance. Combo headgear would be added in at some point, as well as various elastics and power chains. Once completed, I would get hawley retainers.

I love the idea of having Herbsts, especially if they prevent sideways jaw motion. How long would your treatment take?
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Offline bracessd

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Re: Dream Treatment
« Reply #8 on: 27. March 2020, 17:30:25 PM »
I'm thinking around two years total

Offline Velteau

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Re: Dream Treatment
« Reply #9 on: 27. March 2020, 17:56:56 PM »
I'm thinking around two years total

That sounds nice. I'm personally more into freakish treatments, so for me it'd have to be at least 6-8 years.
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Offline bracessd

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Re: Dream Treatment
« Reply #10 on: 30. March 2020, 17:30:24 PM »
That would be intense!

Offline Orio

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Re: Dream Treatment
« Reply #11 on: 30. March 2020, 21:51:10 PM »
I'm happy with the full braces I'm wearing right now.
But if we're talking fantasy treatment I wouldn't mind something more extreme, at least in theory!

To start out with I'd love a pendulum or distal jet with just lower braces. Something that covers the whole palate with plastic and ideally 4 molar bands. So that the only sign of the treatment would be the lower braces and shiny molar bands on the upper premolars flashing through. And the lisp of course.

Then after 6 months I'd have the pendulum removed and an upper expander with a fixed tongue crib put in, along with braces on the top and rubber bands to bring my lower jaw forward. I'd have to turn the expander for a month, and while it could be removed after 6 months of retention, it'll stay in for the whole treatment to fix a tongue thrust. The crib would definitely produce an obvious lisp that will never fully go away.

A few months later I'd get a headgear because the rubber bands weren't working. Which I'd have to wear at least 14h a day. A bottom expander would follow to widen the lower jaw. After expanding the bottom jaw all the appliances would stay in for another 1,5 years until I'd have everything removed and get Halwey retainers.

Offline Velteau

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Re: Dream Treatment
« Reply #12 on: 31. March 2020, 01:14:49 AM »
I'm happy with the full braces I'm wearing right now.
But if we're talking fantasy treatment I wouldn't mind something more extreme, at least in theory!

To start out with I'd love a pendulum or distal jet with just lower braces. Something that covers the whole palate with plastic and ideally 4 molar bands. So that the only sign of the treatment would be the lower braces and shiny molar bands on the upper premolars flashing through. And the lisp of course.

Then after 6 months I'd have the pendulum removed and an upper expander with a fixed tongue crib put in, along with braces on the top and rubber bands to bring my lower jaw forward. I'd have to turn the expander for a month, and while it could be removed after 6 months of retention, it'll stay in for the whole treatment to fix a tongue thrust. The crib would definitely produce an obvious lisp that will never fully go away.

A few months later I'd get a headgear because the rubber bands weren't working. Which I'd have to wear at least 14h a day. A bottom expander would follow to widen the lower jaw. After expanding the bottom jaw all the appliances would stay in for another 1,5 years until I'd have everything removed and get Halwey retainers.

I love how grounded that treatment is — it involves a variety of rare appliances but at the same time is plausible enough that it could really be implemented. Fantastical as it may be, I can see some poor sod somewhere in the world having had to go through something similar at some point.
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Offline duncombec

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Re: Dream Treatment
« Reply #13 on: 02. April 2020, 01:34:27 AM »
I've never hidden that fact that for me, it has to be braces on others, rather than on me, and the same is true here.

The key thing would be a degree of normality, but with something special always in the background. Start with an upper expander and tongue crib, then upper full bands and lower brackets. Over the first 18 months or so, things would build up slowly: first a lower expander, then headgear at nights, then a Herbst appliance, then the lower teeth banded, then a complex elastics pattern (maybe with some hooks on the inside of the teeth?) and finally the headgear upped to a wear pattern that essentially allowed 8 hours off each day for school/college/uni/work, but had to be worn the rest of the time, including 23/5 hours a day at the weekends, to make the grade.

It would then plateau, with 2-3 years of this "max" level, the only real change being to wires and elastic patterns. The uptick would then be reversed, with the appliances slowly being removed until the patient was back to just plain brackets on both jaws, with elastics. Once I was satisfied everything was as it should be, there would be a long period of controlled retention: first sticking with the brackets for a year, then a year in full-time Hawley retainers, then 5 yeas of annual check-ups, with an automatic return-to-braces clause to be invoked at any time if I thought teeth were moving or retainers not being worn.

Even with a 2 year 'plateau' the patient would be looking at around 144 months of treatment from sign on to final release (even though 60 months of that would be the five-year retention period). Imagine starting at 18 - you'd be at least 30 before you could finally walk out and never come back!

Offline Velteau

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Re: Dream Treatment
« Reply #14 on: 02. April 2020, 20:12:50 PM »
I've never hidden that fact that for me, it has to be braces on others, rather than on me, and the same is true here.

The key thing would be a degree of normality, but with something special always in the background. Start with an upper expander and tongue crib, then upper full bands and lower brackets. Over the first 18 months or so, things would build up slowly: first a lower expander, then headgear at nights, then a Herbst appliance, then the lower teeth banded, then a complex elastics pattern (maybe with some hooks on the inside of the teeth?) and finally the headgear upped to a wear pattern that essentially allowed 8 hours off each day for school/college/uni/work, but had to be worn the rest of the time, including 23/5 hours a day at the weekends, to make the grade.

It would then plateau, with 2-3 years of this "max" level, the only real change being to wires and elastic patterns. The uptick would then be reversed, with the appliances slowly being removed until the patient was back to just plain brackets on both jaws, with elastics. Once I was satisfied everything was as it should be, there would be a long period of controlled retention: first sticking with the brackets for a year, then a year in full-time Hawley retainers, then 5 yeas of annual check-ups, with an automatic return-to-braces clause to be invoked at any time if I thought teeth were moving or retainers not being worn.

Even with a 2 year 'plateau' the patient would be looking at around 144 months of treatment from sign on to final release (even though 60 months of that would be the five-year retention period). Imagine starting at 18 - you'd be at least 30 before you could finally walk out and never come back!

That's my kind of treatment — slow, long and gradual. A 12-year process, even if not intense throughout, is still hellishly long. Just the thought of having braces for 5 years, as you suggest, is already enough to scare most people off, and that's not even mentioning additional appliances, elastics, etc.
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