How will they do this??(my orth. isn't taking me seriously!)?

Question

I have had braces for only about 5 months now. My teeth were basically all over the place! The teeth that are suposed to be next to my two front teeth are litterally directly behind them They are not visable almost at all. They started out by removing all 4 of my bicuspid to create room and then put my braces on. The teeth behind the front teeth have nothing on them though and I'm thinking it's, because they are moving the cuspids(canines) more towards the back since they are where the second teeth should be. My question is how are they going to move the teeth up from behind though? Will I need to wear some kind of headware or use another device. I just don't understand and my orthodontist is just not taking me seriously. I am 19 years old and out on my own. I had to wait to get braces, because my parents just could not afford it. When I ask him questions he always just says "Oh we will worry about it when we get there!" Does he know what he is doing? Any thoughts would be great. Thanx

The tooth is not right on top of the other tooth. It's about half an inch back.

Answer 1

Some doctors and dentists have a very condescending manner about them. You can probably get your answer by becoming very insistent, saying that you really need to know and telling him you can't take "we'll worry about it later" as an answer. Probably because you're fairly young he's making the mistake of treating you as if you weren't quite bright. You can't tell whether he knows what he's doing or not by his "bedside" or "chairside" manners. Just because the teeth are overlapping by a lot doesn't mean you'll need headgear, a headgear is used only for moving teeth forward or backward not side-to-side. My best guess is he's waiting to stabilize the teeth outside of the ones the are overlapping, since to move those to their proper position he'll need to anchor them to the teeth towards the sides and slowly pull.

I'm a dental assistant so while I don't know that much, I have helped work on orthodontics and that is what makes the most sense to me.

Answer 2

I had braces for years when I was in JR and high school. It's a scary thing so I feel for you. You are still pretty young, and without seeing what your teeth look like, it's hard to say what he's planning on doing with them, but like the person above me said, it sounds like he's trying to stabilize the other teeth before he starts to really move the other ones from behind to where they really should be. You probably don't have anything to worry about, but I would push him for an explaination. Maybe you could talk to the assistant and ask her to get him to really explain what he's doing. He doesn't really need to go into a lot of detail, but I would at least start with "hey, what's step one of this procedure?". Then you can work on "step two, step three" and so on. I'm sure in the end, it'll all be worth it. Good luck!

Answer 3

i am pretty sure he know what hes doing, after all your teeth are in place, he might take the ones in the back out... the head brace is for people who cant really afford hmmm the normal braces i believe... but n e hooo like i said before am pretty sure he knows whats hes doing....

Answer 4

They wire it up and all.
Relax. I have seen it done on many. They remove 4 canines to make place.
I hope you have gone to a good one.
Read these and see the pics,
all the best to you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodontics

Answer 5

I would go to another orthadontist immediatly! Your orthadontist might not know what hes doing ask to see his degrees if he only has a bacholrs then dump him and go get one with a masters! If hes got a masters then stay with him he will know what hes doing.

Answer 6

Hold on, you have a tooth behind another one? Yikes.
Not sure. He should have explained at least something.