My Journey to Removable Braces

F

foobar

Silver Member
I've just started my second try to get braces. First time (3 years ago) I went to an ortho my dentist recommended, but they would only have used brackets or invisalign, neither of which I'm interested in, so I chickened out. For a real treatment I'd rather like to have removable plates of some sort.

Now, 3 years later, my bruxism night guard starts to crack after 6 years of usage. I had the decision to get a new one or just try to go for braces again (as I don't want to pay hundreds for a new guard and then get braces, making my new guard not fit anymore anyway).

This time I searched online for orthos near me that treat adults using removable braces and found 7 whose websites stated that they do so. Those websites mention both invisalign and removable appliances separately. Judging from their website and location I called my top 3 a week ago. In that call I directly asked them if they used removable appliances which are not aligners like invisalign. That's when one of the practices said that they only use brackets or invisalign, leading to me ending the call quickly. The other two orthos do also use removable braces for adults and gave me initial consultation appointments for today and tomorrow respectively.

Since I got the appointments, I am super nervous and my whole body is just screaming "stress" all over the place. I think the last time my body reacted this strongly to stress was during the last weeks of my thesis. To those people having gone through the same thing, how do you handle your nerves building up before the appointment?!
 
I had my first consultation with ortho1 today morning. Before leaving the house I checked my blood pressure and pulse and they were completely through the roof! So much for wanting to stay calm…

The practice has an open treatment area with 3 chairs. I was led into a semi-private room with an open doorway to the open treatment area. Upon entering the room I instantly spotted 6 sets of appliance presentation model. Gladly, none of them was for invisalign :) Two had fixed brackets (one with metal ones and one with clear ones). Two more had removable plates and another one even a Bionator. The last one was for showing fixed retainers.

I stated from the very beginning that I'd like to have some smaller problems fixed with removable appliances which I only did at the end of the appointment 3 years ago. I'd like to think that this helped, but judging by the models I guess there really were only two options to begin with.
The orthodontist took a look at my teeth and pretty much found the same things I had collected over the years and want to get fixed. According to her, most things can be fixed with removable braces, albeit with a bit of difficulty. However, aligning my midline (2mm off) and fixing my wisdom teeth (which have enough space but are biting edge-to-edge not affecting my bite) can only be done with fixed braces and elastics (which I don't want).

The removable appliances she showed me are somewhat similar to Schwarz appliances. She said that my plates will probably with a few springs, screws and maybe other goodies. For my bruxism, she wants to apply a posterior bite plane to the lower appliance. She'll make the plane pretty thick, thicker than my night guard which has 2-3mm to relax my joint muscles. All in all she expects 1 year of treatment depending on how much I wear the braces (12h/d minimum).
For retention she showed me bonded retainers and stated that she always uses them on both jaws, usually on the front 4 or 6 teeth, sometimes even on 8. For my bruxism I'd additionally have a night guard for my lower jaw. I asked whether it'd be possible to use removable retainers instead. She wasn't really positive, stating that I'd need to wear them for the rest of my life as teeth will always shift to a certain degree and that fixed retainers are lower maintenance. I replied that I'll probably already wear the bruxism guard for the rest of my life, so it wouldn't really matter if I'd have one or two appliance in my mouth during the night. She didn't seem to positive, but also not fully negative about it.

If I go ahead with this ortho, there'll be a second appointment for record taking where they'll take two sets of molds (one for the record and one for appliance creation) and radiographs. In a third appointment she'll present the treatment plan. If I agree to still go forward with her, the braces will be fitted in a fourth appointment.


In the end, I'm already super stoked. This was a huge success as I got an offer containing just what I wanted and which I'll gladly accept. I still have a consultation tomorrow morning with a different ortho, so I'll se what they propose. But I can go into that more relaxed as I don't really "need" it anymore, already having a very good option.
 
Yesterday I had my consultation appointment with ortho2. I was slightly less nervous as expected. This appointment went more like what I expected most of them to go and be like. Their website stated that they use brackets, invisalign and removable braces for adults, which was confirmed when I called beforehand. The doctor himself is rather old, which should be a good indication for removable appliances.

The practice is located in a more expensive area and was pretty large. It felt more impersonal than the practice of ortho1, which was smaller and in general felt more individual. Upon being seated in a patient room, a female orthodontist explained to me that the older ortho will retire soon and thus won't take any more new patients. Instead, she'll be taking over the practice and handle all new patients.

When I was asked why I was there and answered that I'd like to have a few minor things fixed with removable non-invisalign braces, she already started to become quite dismissive. After taking a look into my mouth, she explained what was wrong with my teeth. Only some of the things I already knew about. Other things she noticed I still don't really agree with, but then again I'm not an orthodontist. After I added the things I'd like to get fixed, she stated that only brackets or invisalign will give me a satisfactory result. Removable plates won't be able to fix most things and she doesn't like using them. She only rarely uses them, for example when a single tooth relapses during / after retention. For me the only options would be fixed braces for 9-12 months or invisalign for 3-6 months.

Honestly, this was pretty much what I was expecting to happen during all of the consultation appoints, them looking at my teeth and stating that they only offer brackets or invisalign. Luckily, as I already had my offer from ortho1 with what I wanted, I quickly ended the appointment with ortho2.

Upon leaving the building, I instantly called ortho1 to accept their offer and start treatment with them. Tomorrow (Thursday) will be the record-taking appointment. After that 2 more appointments until I get removable braces, just as I wanted (hopefully)! So now there is no way back for me (or at least that's what I tell myself not to chicken out in the end ;) )

An interesting thing is that I've been at 3 different orthos total so far (including the one 3 years ago) and all of them found and focused on pretty different problems of my teeth. I guess asking 3 people for their input will get you 4 different answers :)
 
Yesterday was my record-taking appointment. It didn't involve the orthodontist at all. Instead, the assistant prepared and handled everything. First, both a panoramic and a side-view radiograph were taken. Afterwards she photographed my side profile in addition my teeth from the front. The last thing to do where the impressions of both jaws. Luckily I didn't have any problems with that. The impression material went back into my mouth quite a lot, so far that I couldn't have my tongue not touch it. However, I didn't really need to gag. It wasn't necessarily comfortable, but it also didn't bother me significantly compared to what I've read pretty much everywhere else. While my impressions were taken, another patient next to me was lucky (or unfortunate?) enough to get a lower lip bumper installed. After my impressions, I was already finished, in fact quite a lot quicker than I expected. I have another appointment in 3 weeks to get presented and discuss the treatment plan. If (or rather once) I accept, another set of impressions will be taken to create the braces from (the ones taken yesterday are for record-keeping and treatment evaluation only). I guess 3 weeks isn't anything unusual, but that time will probably feel like ages for me. I wonder how much time they'll need to create the appliances afterwards. How long did it take for you accepting the treatment plan to getting removable braces? So what time frame can I probably expect?
 
Thanks. I'm from Germany. Guess I can call myself lucky in my quest for removable braces being from a country where at least children are still somewhat regularly treated with them.
 
When I got my removables as a kid they made them in house so it was all really fast - probably all farmed out to labs now though.
 
PlainJane said:
When I got my removables as a kid they made them in house so it was all really fast - probably all farmed out to labs now though.
Click to expand...

I'm interested in how long it'll take after I accept the treatment plan in two days until I get my braces. If it's made in-house I'd expect it to happen quite fast similar to your experience. But unfortunately I'm expecting it to be several more dreading weeks :S

I just realized that I haven't picked a color for my braces yet, even though I'll need to decide within the next days. Of course it'll depend on what's available. I'm thinking transparent dark blue, but that may be a bit boring?
 
Two days ago I had another appointment where the ortho presented me with an overview of my treatment. She acknowledged all of the small things I'd like to get corrected, but also mentioned some other things that she found. There are the known slight crowding, rotation and tilting, mainly in the front. But she also explained that my front teeth are close to an edge-to-edge bite, only having a slight overbite and overjet, less than the normal expected ones. Regarding my edge-to-edge wisdom teeth, the impressions unfortunately had an air bubble where my wisdom teeth are. They took new impressions, making sure that my wisdom teeth were included this time, to see if she might be able to partially correct them.

As treatment she plans removable plates with posterior bite planes for bruxism. Maybe, depending on the new impressions, she can use buttons on the wisdom teeth to correct them. Primarily, she wants to pull back my lower and upper front teeth to increase my too small overbite and overjet while also fixing the crowding, rotations and tilting. In the upper jaw I have enough space for all of those corrections, but the lower jaw will require IPR. For retention I'll get fixed retainers as well as hawley-style retainers, each for both jaws. All in all, the treatment will take roughly 1 - 1½ years.

I should get the detailed treatment plan today, which I'll sign and hand to them on Tuesday. At that appointment yet another set of impressions will be taken for the lab to construct the appliances from. The lab is part of their practice, so the braces will be done by Thursday already, where I'll finally get them!!!
 
I never knew they made them onsite. 2 days to make them is crazy quick! Although waiting 3 weeks for my retainers was too long for the anxiety levels so quicker is probably better! Had too much time to get worried about it. By the time I got to the practice I was so nervous!
 
Them having the lab on-site makes me glad I chose their practice instead of others. The removable braces production step itself is just 2 days. However, with all the appointments beforehand, I'm nervous since pretty much the beginning and didn't have a good night's sleep since close to 4 weeks now. So I already had plenty of time to get and be nervous and still have several days left.
 
The detailed treatment plan mainly contains what was already discussed beforehand. The diagnosis sounds like my whole mouth is a construction site ;) Treatment plan is as expected, except that it doesn't mention anything regarding my wisdom teeth. Guess that'll be a question for tomorrow.

When I get my appliances on Thursday I'll absolutely post pictures of them!
 
Today I had my final non-braces appointment, where yet again, another set of impressions were taken. I asked her about fixing my wisdom teeth, which was left out in the detailed treatment plan. She said, that it might be fixable with buttons but is not related to the removable plates. She'll take another look at that when I receive my appliances in two days. I was also able to convince her to make the upper plate fill my whole palate instead of being horseshoe-like. So if everything goes according to plan, I may get beyond the treatment of my dreams (removable plates filling a lot of space), possibly having buttons and elastics as well (what else would you need buttons for)! :D
 
The estimate is around 4000€. I guess that'll increase with all my special requests which hadn't been part of the treatment plan (like the buttons).

I'm really starting to dread the appointment tomorrow. On one hand side, it could be even better than what I am dreaming of for over a decade, on the other hand side I could be overhyped and get disappointed because the appliances are different from what I expected, or I could even realize that reality isn't as amazing as fiction. But hey, at least I'll know which one of the three it'll be in less than 24 hours :)
 
I got half of my braces today. Unfortunately, the model for the upper plate seems to have warped slightly. The appliance fit the model perfectly, but doesn't fit my jaw, which the ortho wasn't able to fix. Another set of impressions for the upper jaw was taken and the appliance will be remade. Thus I only got the lower appliance for now and will get the one for the upper jaw in one week.

Here are some pictures:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/530075173014077451/817415470420197386/1.jpg
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/530075173014077451/817415467693637712/2.jpg
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/530075173014077451/817415476749402132/3.jpg

The lower brace feels absolutely massive. Talking is pretty hard already and the tongue feels very restricted. And I only have 50% of the appliances so far :) Even if I learned to speak with the lower appliance alone, I'll need to relearn how to speak anyway once I get the plate for the upper jaw.
I didn't get a close look at the non-fitting upper appliance, but from what I could make out, it looked like it had a Y-screw and several springs, some of which were going back to the wisdom teeth. So maybe no buttons and elastics for me…

For now I'm just supposed to get used to them as nothing has been activated yet. Still, everything feels like a weird surreal dream, but I hope the dream will never end ;)
 
Great so far.
It does look quite bulky.
Its strange that the top surface is not very polished. Looks like it was shaped with grinder but not polished. Is there mor to do on it.?

I always think that my bottom retainer has more effect on my speech than the top one.
 
The top surface was polished originally, but I couldn't bite on it properly. Only a single tooth connected. Thus the ortho ground away material until it fit better.
retained said:
I always think that my bottom retainer has more effect on my speech than the top one.
Click to expand...
The top one looked quite bulky as well and was pretty thick in the front. It'll be interesting to see which one will affect my speech more. It won't be a fair comparison though, as I'll already have worn and practiced with the lower one for a week.
 
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