To make DD wear braces?

[AjasLipstick]

We're in Australia but before we emigrated, we saw an NHS dentist who said DD, then aged almost 11, did qualify for an NHS brace as she has a quite noticeable overbite.

Anyway...she's now 14 and we went to see the orthodontist here...it's taken this long to get to the head of the queue to qualify for financial support for her braces.

Orthodontist has today explained what braces she'll need and for how long (just over a year) and she's come home fuming that she doesn't want them, she is perfectly fine with the way her teeth look etc.

She says we're all too obsessed with looks and it's shallow.

this from a kid who 6 months ago wouldn;t have a photo of herself smiling!

She's very image conscious and is always doing hair and makeup etc.

I think it's just nerves. She HAS grown into her teeth a lot this year but still has a little elfin like lower jaw and a pronounced overbite.

AIBU to insist? She'll get to 21 and tell me off for not making her! Then it will cost her thousands.

As it is, it's only costing us the equivelant of 500 pounds. That's a BIG discount here in Oz.

I refused to wear mine most of the time. You cannot force someone who doesn't want to wear braces to do so.

Mine hurt- not just the pain of them moving things around, but there was a spike bit designed to retrain my tongue iirc, and I remember the soreness and irritation that came with them touching my gums. Eating was horrible, to the point that if I had been forced to wear them for a meal I would generally refuse to eat. They made speaking an ordeal. Spit would pool under the roof of the top one, felt gross, sounded gross. The bottom one was supposed to be connected to the top one with little elastic bands, making it even more impossible to talk normally or be comfortable. It was really awful, made worse by the point blank refusal of my parents and dentist to understand just how awful it was. And I don't particularly regret refusing them. My bottom teeth are a bit crooked. No other problems. Certainly nothing to make wearing those braces worth it!

If my children need braces when older then I will be making them wear them, they will thank me when older.

Our just 16yr old son is 18 months into treatment for a 1 cm overjet (correct term...most people think it’s an overbite - apparently that’s actually something different). So far he’s had 4 teeth removed (alternative would have been twin blocks for 12 months - they were horrendous and he couldn’t cope with them) and now has traintracks - ortho has said probably another year for these. So as you can see the treatment time will have been really quite lengthy and he has found it quite painful when the braces have been tightened.

I don’t think you can force your daughter at all but the pros and cons can be presented sensibly (could your ordinary dentist do this? More neutral than parents or orthodontist). With our son his lower teeth were growing and rubbing his palate as they weren’t hitting the upper teeth as they normally would. They were also getting chipped easily. This was both uncomfortable and functionally made it difficult to eat certain foods.

Good luck!!

I can honestly say the retainer part is not a huge issue at all for dd. She had her braces on for 2 years so yes that meant a lot of tightening over time and some days when she was sore after. So when they came off she was delighted with the result, so she knows the retainer is what is will keep them that way. She only had to wear it full time for a few weeks after, now only at night. But they put permanent wires behind the teeth now to hold them in place, the retainer isn't forever. The wires behind, which cannot be seen, will stay on. But she had a lot of work and there was a lot of movement, but I assume this is standard practice now.

Make her get braces.
The retainer she'll have to wear later will be behind her teeth so not visible.

Steff the orthodontist explained that there "could" be certain effects of her not getting them but DD took that to mean "Maybe or maybe not" which is her argument.

She seems to be a bit more reasonable about it now....I do think she's just a bit nervous about it. The ones she'll have are not removable...so she can't take them out and I'm hoping that when she gets a retainer, she will use it properly due to the effort she;ll have gone through withthe braces!

DD's retainer doesn't go behind her teeth.
She has plastic retainers which are a bit like thin gum shields I guess. They go over her teeth. But only worn at night when in bed. She was warned that I'd she misses too many days then they'll feel tighter - it means the teeth are moving back.
By the time the fixed braces came off she loved her new teeth/smile and was determined not to lose it after going through brace treatment to get it. Hence she wears her retainers more than she actually needs to. She only doesn't wear them if having a sleepover somewhere, for a night at a tune. Any longer she takes them.

Murphys - the wires depend on the type of issues they had. Dd doesn't have wires behind. Just the retainers for night. Needed white intense treatment at the time, but nothing permanent left behind.

I don't see how the braces are going to help. Even with bands they won't have much of an effect on her jaw will they? I have an overbite. I was given this horrible top and bottom plate thing with blocks in it to pull my jaw forwards. I eventually decided that I'd rather not have it fixed and my parents didn't insist (not sure how that will pan out long term but so far so good, better than ruining the proportions of my face at any rate). I did have braces though (overcrowded mouth). They were great and I really needed th because my teeth where just tonic for myouth so I had to get teeth extracted to make room etc. but they also ruined my teeth bit (I got a piece or orange stuck in them and couldn't get rid of it fora few days which result in really bad tooth decay). Orthodontics is just as much a cosmetic medicine as it is about dental health so you will get different opinions from different orthodontists depending on what the prioritise (E. G. One orthadentist tried convince me to wear a plate in order to expand my jaw enough to fit in the bigger teeth while a different one said it was better to just pull out four big ones and fit the rest into the haw I already had. You may also want to consider ceramics. I had ceramics and they were actually quite attractive.

My DD’s orthodontic treatment has already widened her jaw and reduced her overbite.

It’s stepwise:

• top permanent plate that initially needed to be widened by us for the first month (with a little key) plus bottom braces. The plate seemed to almost immediately reduce the over crowded appearance (it was bad)
• now those elastic bands to encourage the bottom jaw to move forward
• then the plate will come off and there’ll be top braces for a year.

She uses those piksters to help clean her teeth and her hygiene is great, she’s a fairly dramatic person at times and the only tricky days were the first two.

I don’t notice the changes on a day to day level but when I see photos I’m so impressed by how good they look already. At least 1 of the other 3 will probably need them, but not to the same extent and probably not the plate.

Anyway...she's now 14 and we went to see the orthodontist here...it's taken this long to get to the head of the queue to qualify for financial support for her braces

I didn't even know financial support existed for dentistry/orthodontics in Australia - only that there is the public dental program or private health (self funded).

My mum also stopped my treatment as she didn’t want me to have teeth out. Here I am aged 40 paying 5k to have the straight teeth I would have had back then. She was only doing what felt right to her but you know what you need to do. Make her have them!

I wish my parents had forced me! Now 32 with awful teeth and can't afford the £3000 to get them fixed. It's something that unfortunately bothers me every day of my life.

I had extensive orthodontic treatment as a teen. They wouldn't do it until all my adult teeth came through so about the same age as your DD. It is tough but was SO worth it. It gave me a proper bite. I didn't wear my retainers properly after the treatment and my bottom teeth shuffled back slightly but still the overall improvement is HUGE. I think you should make her - even if you think she won't wear the retainers. She'll have no choice with the bits they weld on to your teeth!

It’s interesting hearing how many children have had teeth out. I wonder if it’s a UK versus Australia thing? I’d always assumed DD would have to have some extractions as there seemed to be teeth everywhere but we were told that rarely happens anymore. 6-7 months in everything has already shifted around really well.

DD had twin blocks, I think her overbite was 17mm. Normalish after 9 months and then had train tracks. I had mine fixed by them breaking my jaw. Very glad the have better procedures now.

I have a very huge overbite(my two front teeth don't get used to chew or for anything really) and my teeth are misaligned.

The first time I went to the dentist at 12 I was told I'd need teeth out first that terrified me and discouraged me so fast forward to 16 I had dentist appointments all very painful long hours and wasted so lot of my time while I was trying to get my degree I decided against braces again for the fact that the dentist appointments weren't worth the pain and I was quite happy as I was.

I still haven't had my teeth corrected although I have thought about it and how much it will cost.

I think at her age she isn't really up to decision making I definitely changed my mind and went back at 16 because in the past I was just scared x

No kid wants braces. Make her have then or you're right, she'll be shelling out thousands when she's in her 20s. I cried when I was told I had to have them, but my parents didn't give me an option. Plenty of people will have them at her school, she won't be alone.

I was meant to have an operation to correct my overbite when I was 17, but refused it at a late stage and now, at 29, I really wish I'd gone through with it. I have always been conscious of my smile.

Don't let her miss this opportunity.

Insist, insist, insist.

I talk from experience.

She has a choice, I gave mine one but at 13 he still has many baby teeth so once they are away he will get his braces, he did have a good long think about it and we discussed it etc.

I had braces from 11/12, then tracks at 15-19 and an operation at 19 due to a severe overbite and jaw issue. No orthodontic and dentist treatment isn’t nice and it can be painful and I never felt I could say no because I wanted straight teeth and a better bite as it was very uncomfortable & my profile was really underdeveloped and both the orthodontic Work and surgery made a world of difference to my confidence, and appearance I’m glad it got it done it would cost a fortune to get it done later in life.

I think you can list all the pros and cons of getting braces now, but ultimately it has to be her decision. (If she chooses not to go ahead you could perhaps get her to sign a piece of paper declining treatment so you can show it to her when she’s in her 20s and complaining about the cost 🤣)

I'd keep trying with her. My mum turned down braces for me when I was about 11 and I really wish she hadn't. I'm now paying thousands for Invisalign.

my overbite caused so many issues and pain that I would try everything I could to insist. Easier to do if its fixed braces as she won't be able take them out and pretend she's be wearing them.

My overbite caused:

• night grinding as my bite was off (this resulted in so much pain in jaw and neck)

• Poor hygiene because I couldn't clean them properly due to the overcrowding in some places. This resulted in gum disease that needed surgery

• poor confidence as teenager/adult as they just looked awful.

• couldn't eat properly because my bite was so off so i had to bit from side as the gap between front top and bottom was too great. I wouldn't eat in public

I paid a lot of money to have them done as an adult and it's made such a huge difference.

OP, I really feel for you and your daughter. However .... it's really important that she gets braces - it isn't cosmetic. Or solely cosmetic.

No, you can't literally "force her" as in physically sit on top of her while she's in the dentist chair. However, you can remove the idea of choice. Given a choice, almost any teenager will choose not to have braces - it's bloody unpleasant. But she's too young for the responsibility of making that choice - you as a parent have to take the long view.

Just tell her this is going to happen. You can discuss it but are not open to negotiation. And then, if you can afford it (and I appreciate you're on a tight budget), treat her to something she'd like. Or you might ask a relative or godparent to treat her as a favour to you - this happened to me some years back when a cash-strapped friend's daughter had braces and asked me to do something nice for her, which I was more than happy to do.

Good luck!

Tawny yes there's help. You have to earn below a certain amount though. We're not starving but certainly not rich.

Cing thank you...that's pretty much been my line...she's argued and I've remained firm that it's not a choice and it's to save her more bother in the future. I've also explained that she's used to the way her teeth feel but once adjusted, she may notice a difference and find it easier to speak and eat!

How can she know? She's only ever had what she's had since small.

As a PP said, loads of kids in her school have them. This is Australia...it's brace city!