Braces - pull teeth or expand?

[Molly Meow]

Without trying to be negative, I just wanted to share the fact that having that expander hurt pretty darn bad. If I were faced with your choice, I'd say pull the teeth, but only because I've been through it.

I was 16 when I had mine, and it was so hard for my parents to get me to sit still to use the key to turn it twice a day - because I knew how much it was going to hurt. I also lost hearing. I can't imagine convincing an 8 or 9 year old into letting you do it.

Good luck for your kids, whatever you decide! Braces were painful AND a pain to deal with, but I don't regret it for a second! I actually smile now - never did until I got them off!

 

[Cinderellagrl]

TXJasmine - I am going through the same thing with my 8 year old. I think pulling the teeth is the best option because it will probably allow for his permanent to come in straighter. He has his dad big teeth, but my little mouth.

I got braces when I was 26. Too many teeth for such a little mouth. I had 8 permanent teeth removed and STILL had to have the top expander put in. I wore my braces for 3 years (should have been two, but I hated wearing bands.)

I am trying to spare Pete as much agony as possible with braces by doing what we can now to get them to come in naturally. So far he has had 3 teeth pulled, but we are going back in a few weeks to do more.

Pete's Mom, I'm curious...you said you had the expander at 26 years old. Did you have the SARPE surgery or did they just put the expander in?

 

[goofy4tink]

We were lucky with dd. She started losing her baby teeth very early. And the first time she saw the pedidontist we were told that her mouth was very small and it would need help. This was when she was 3!!! Her baby teeth started falling out and she got her expander when she was in first grade if I remember correctly. That was in for about 9 months. Since she was still so young her mouth wasn't close to finished forming so it was a lot easier for the expander to do its' work in a shorter amount of time. Then she got braces on her top teeth. Those were on for about 15 months. They came off, she got a retainer while we waited for more baby teeth to 'retire'. They are gone except for 2 or 3. She went without her retainer from July until Dec. Then she got her new braces...double tracks as she calle them. They should be on for about 18 months. The ortho showed us the pictures they have taken of dd since the beginning of her treatments. It's incredible how much her mouth has changed. I would never have believed it unless I saw the photos.

A friend has a son who got braces and had to have two teeth taken out. So, I guess it's still done but on an individual basis.

 

[tiggersmom2]

I would not go to a general dentist for ortho.

AMEN to that! My dad is a dentist (I'm his hygienist) and his bestfriend is an orthodontist. You would not BELIEVE the horror stories that we have seen from general dentist doing braces!!!!!

 

[gshoemate]

When I was younger and had to have braces I ended up having both done. I had to have 2 teeth on the bottom pulled because there was just no room for movement or expanding. And then I had an expander on the top. It hurt but I got used to it. But I had 2 children natural childbirth with no drugs so I can handle lots of pain.

 

[gshoemate]

I would not go to a general dentist for ortho.

I totally agree. I went to a general dentist for round 2 of braces and he messed me up bad. Only put braces on the top, which set my bite off and now I suffer from TMJ. Go with the Ortho!

 

[eeyore0062]

I had teeth pulled AND had braces. Many of us just don't have the room in our mouths for all of the teeth we are supposed to have. I also have more gaps between my upper teeth than I would like, but at least they are straight.

 

[scoutsmom99]

. I ended up having braces way too long (like over 7 yrs) and as soon as I got them off those teeth went right back. Now I will admit that my retainer use wasn't 24/7 but I did wear it.

LOL that sounds like me I have had a host of dental problems in my 23 years on the planet! I do have a small mouth and I actually had a lot of permenant teeth not come in, but I still had 4 or 5 teeth pulled when I was in middle school. I was also missing both of my eye teeth (at least I think that is what they are called).

I was getting my braces as most of my friends were getting thiers off which really sucked...I got my braces on summer before 9th grade and I did not get them off till spring break of my 1st year of college! My ortho (who I really didn't care for) finally decided my senior year of high school that I needed a sagittal split osteotomy (which insurance did not cover becuause they said it was cosmetic!) for my lower jaw to move it forward. I had that done the summer before I went to college and I had my mouth wired shut from July 5th to August 20th, 1999. Then after that I had my braces removed in March of 2000...then summer of 2000 started the rode for implant surgery...which was long because I had about 3 diff retainers (one was a flipper) to make sure I had enough space for the implants. Well I was finally done with the implants and everything in Summer of 2002. It was a long rode and I never really had any pain, but I'm so glad I'm done with it. Needless to say I have a very expensive mouth

I had one friend who had an expander and she hated it, most of my friends that had smaller mouths had thier teeth pulled.

 

[Twinkles6892]

I had to have one tooth pulled to make room for my canine which wanted to come down in the roof of my mouth. The only thing now is my bite is off center, my top teeth don't line up with my nose or my bottom teeth at all. I could have kept my braces on for another four months, but decided against that. I'm the only one who notices.

I'd go for the teeth pulled, I've heard so many horror stories about pallete expanding.

 

[AtlantaSue]

My 7 year old daughter currently has an expander and braces (top only) and all is going well. The expander took some getting used to, but isn't painful to her. We were never given the teeth pulling option! Anyway, the expander came first, then the braces last month, and all should be off in August. Good luck!

 

[Christine]

I don't believe in pulling permanent teeth unless it is absolutely necessary. I think you should try to keep every tooth you've got!!!

Way back in the dark ages when I got braces, my mom took me to ortho #1. He was going to have my teeth straightened in 18 months, but he was going to have to pull four permanent teeth. My mom freaked over that for some reason and took me to another orthodontist. One that she head had gone to a "better" dental school !. So off we went. He said he never believed in pulling useful teeth. He x-rayed my mouth, saw that I had wisdom teeth that would eventually come in. He moved all my teeth back with a headgear and then did braces. When I was 21, I had my wisdom teeth removed (most people need these moved anyway. I just think my mouth would have looked weird without all my teeth. They were going to remove the ones right behind the "eye" or "canine" teeth. My braces ended up taking 2.5 years with this guy, but I believe he did it the right way.

Both my kids are in braces now and both are wearing expanders. Pulling teeth was never brought up by the ortho.

 

[disneygals]

My dd had the expander to correct a crossbite and small upper palate when she was nine. It worked great for her. She didn't have much pain and we had to only turn it every 3 days. The entire process took less than 9 months. Now she is 12, finally losing her molars and has regular braces. She doesn't have that bad of a mouth situation, though.

 

[bigbabyblues]

I got braces put on a few years ago, and I had to have my wisdom teeth pulled first because they didn't grow in right, and they also pulled an extra tooth on the top to make room to straighten my teeth. I was 25 when I got braces, so that may have made a difference.

Steph

 

[Pete's Mom]

Pete's Mom, I'm curious...you said you had the expander at 26 years old. Did you have the SARPE surgery or did they just put the expander in?

Luckily no surgery, they just put the expander in the top of my mouth and I had to turn it once a day for two weeks. Molly Meow is correct, I hated that thing. My head would ache for hours afterwards because the tension was so great. By the time the pain eased, it was time to turn it again. Ugh! After two weeks of turning it, I had to leave it in for 6 months so that the change would be permanent. I was so glad when they finally took it out.

 

[TxJasmine]

Thank you all so much for your responses - it's really good to hear about your experiences! We're still undecided about which way we want to go, but I think we're leaning toward the expander. The main reason for this - and it's not a good reason - is that I don't like the idea of removing two perfectly good teeth. We did go to two different orthos to see if we would get two different opinions. Both of them pretty much recommended the same work on each kid. The only difference was that ortho #2 gave the option of expanding or removing. He also said that he wasn't as agressive as some other orthos with the expansion and that the key only needs to be turned twice a week. Ortho #1 wanted to turn the key every day. We decided to go with ortho #2 because we felt he was more thorough with his examination, and I liked the fact that he gave us some different options. Both of my kids are so excited about getting braces, but the poor kids have no idea what kind of pain they're in for!

 

[hydster]

We are going through this with my 9 yo ds and it hasn't been to bad yet. He had a tooth that was behind the other teeth so we had to do a pallate expander. He has both top and bottom though the bottom one is just there to keep the room he has already. The worst part for my son was the spacers they had to put in his mouth to get enough room to put the expander on his back molars. He was in terrible pain for about 2 days with that. Our expander requires no intervention from us whatsoever. It is spring loaded and it just moves it gradually. Our ortho said he would't consider pulling any teeth because of the long term effects it could have with facial flattening or tmj later on. My son will keep the expander on for about 18 more weeks and then he'll go to retainers. The ortho said he'll wear the retainer for probably 18 months and then we'll go to braces. My son has had his expander on since the first week in December and already the teeth have moved a lot.

Thankfully my other kids don't show any need for orthodontic work...keeping fingers crossed for that!

Heidi

 

[Becky2005]

I don't know about pulling...I know my DH had to have braces and his choice back then was pull 4 teeth or braces. HE voted for pulling the 4 teeth, his parents went for the braces (he ended up having to have 2 pulled anyway I believe). He was older though (in his teens!)...he couldn't fathom why not go the quicker easy route of just pulling the 4 teeth instead of the brace route (and this was way back when and I believe he told me he had the whole headgear thing).

I know I'm going to face this soon with DD I think...her teeth are coming in weird and one is coming in completely sideways. I did take her to the dentist for a quickie - umm...is this normal? look and he said something about orthodonics once it comes in, etc... because sometimes it will adjust itself but she already has other teeth now coming in through the gums but her baby teeth haven't LEFT yet so it's interesting.

I thought we could wait until teen years for braces (as I don't remember them doing them so young before) but looks like it will be soon from what I see.

I think if they give me the choice of pulling a few teeth to make room and no braces or leaving the teeth and braces. She'll be getting teeth pulled (I just had a couple back molars pulled recently and it wasn't that big of a deal and a TON cheaper than the root canal they had talked about - got both teeth pulled for the same price as 1 root canal!)

 

[pc1228]

Before you extract any teeth, PLEASE go get a second opinion. My son had 4 permanent teeth extracted at the direction of his first orthodontist to remove overcrowding. I later found out that this was the wrong thing to do and now he will have to have dental implants (thousands of dollars) to replace the 4 perfectly good teeth that were removed. Sometimes it IS necessary to extract teeth, but when teeth are extracted, to fill in the gaps created, the teeth in front have to move back toward the molars. You may end up with straight teeth and no gaps, but also end up looking worse, as was the case with my son. If you are considering whether to have your child’s teeth extracted, here’s a simple test you can perform: Take a picture of your child in profile. Print the picture and look closely at your child’s profile. Ideally you want the bridge of the nose (the point where glasses would rest), the upper lip, the lower lip, and the edge of the chin to all be aligned in a straight line. Look at your child’s picture and see where the chin and lips are in relation to the bridge of the nose. In my son’s case, his chin and upper lip were already perfectly aligned with the bridge of his nose, but his lower lip was too far in. Because he had two teeth on the bottom and two teeth on the top extracted, the upper and lower front teeth moved in toward the back to fill in the gaps. The result was that both the upper and lower lips got more out of alignment with the chin and bridge of the nose, creating an awkward profile and making the chin look out of place. If my son’s teeth had not been extracted and an expander was used instead, the bottom teeth would have moved forward and made his lower lip line up with his chin, which would have improved his appearance. Years ago, having teeth extracted to fix overcrowding was standard practice, but today many orthodontists use expanders instead if the patient’s lips need to come forward. It all depends on your child’s face and where those four points line up. If your orthodontist does not use expanders, then go see an orthodontist who does and get a second opinion before you let anyone pull teeth. Using the expander might result in straight teeth AND a more aesthetic appearance for your child.

 

[barkley]

i would suggest that anyone whose orthodontist reccommends any type of expansion or reduction therapy make an appointment with an oral and maxiofacial surgeon. these professionals can assess whether the treatment is necessery and if the patient is age appropriate. too often not enough consideration is given to the impact that a childs natural growth and development will play on the shape of their jaws. the wrong decision can result in years of unneeded treatment and pain.

i wore a "tounge trap" when i was around 7 for a couple of years (metal spikes that came down from the roof of the mouth supposedly to deter one from pushing their front teeth out with their tounge). years later i sought orthodontic care for cosmetic purposes and learned that the earlier treatment had been pointless-i had tmj that could/should have been detected when i was a child (the xrays showed that the deterioration of my joints had been occuring for years) and in the absence of appropriate/timely treatment i had to have 2 adult teeth pulled and the bone of the upper jaw removed where those teeth had been (major surgery-in the hospital for 7 days, jaws wired shut for 6 weeks). we were advised that even if the tmj had not been present-any type of "dental" treatment that involves reshaping or reconfiguring facial bones should be reviewed by a maxiofacial specialist who is more adept at determining long term benefits and risks.

it is well worth the consultation fee.

 

[Imzadi]

I had four permanent teeth pulled. I still had gaps, even after braces. But never noticed any problems having had them removed. Unfortunately, I have impacted wisdom teeth, growing sideways. I should have had them out a few years ago. I recently noticed that they closed the gap & are now pushing my front teeth forward. So they definitely have to come out. I dread getting them out.