Twin Block Braces - Any Advice?

[Shar0769]

Hi
First post to Mumsnet, so please bear with me

Just arrived back from Orthodontist with ds (10) who has had twin block braces fitted to correct his overbite and adjust his jaw. I can honestly say I feel sick/upset, he looks like he's shoved a sock in his mouth; can't speak, can't smile. Im dreading to think how he's going to cope at school.

If anyone has any advice/experience on these braces it would be great. Anything to ease my worries.

Thanks.

The upper brace didn't fit, so they had to do a new impression and order another.

TheSecond that's a real shame, especially when she'd have been psyched up to get it. It won't be long though.

My ds got some hooks attached to his fixed braces today to fit elastic bands to. They're a real faff. He has to remove them to eat ( which as a 14 year old giant beanpole he does a lot of!) and then try to re attach them afterwards. He's finding them really fiddly but I'm sure it'll become second nature soon enough.

Vjg wishing you and your dd all the best for tomorrow.

DS2 (straightforward teeth, no twin blocks, was allowed to go straight to fixed braces) had the elastic bands attached to hooks.

He was told to leave them in to eat (I think the orthodontist had experienced too many teenagers forgetting to put them back in after eating).

As it turned out, the act of eating often caused the bands to snap anyway. He had the bands for months, so I hate to think how many broken bands he must have swallowed.

My daughter's tooth extraction went well and they got it all out. She is a bit sore and swollen on that side today but off school and bravely doing a bit of homework now! She is seeing the orthodontist in a few weeks when it has healed up and the stitches have disolved or dropped out. Fixed braces should follow. Thanks for the good wishes.

Thesecondofhername, blimey that is a real pain. Do you know how quickly the new top one will be ready

DD's twin blocks (v.2) should be ready in half term. She also has a impacted tooth which will need pulling up out of the gum, then train track fixed braces, so it's going to be a long journey

vjg13 you must be relieved the extraction is done. She sounds v.brave.

I was just wondering if anyone knows whether once you stop wearing twin blocks, if your jaw goes back to its original position (Over time) x

It shouldn't as long as the jaw has been realigned. Part of the reason for doing treatment while the child is still growing is to correct the bite.

Ok thank you for letting me know :)

My son's orthodontist says that a small amount of regression is normal, which is why they tend to over correct. My son wore blocks until his teeth were 'tip to tip' and since he's stopped wearing them, his jaw has slipped back a bit. He looks great though, his jaw is in a great position now.

First of all ladies thank you all for contributing to this thread. I’ve stumbled across it tonight through my tears of worry about my little girl and it’s been so reassuring to read! My dd is 10 and has had twin blocks fitted today. Crazily I had them myself age 9 almost 30 years ago! I thought things might have moved on since then obviously not!! 😨 my daughter has been amazingly stoic all day and upbeat but I’ve been a mess remembering how hard I found them to get used to. She tried to eat in then today but I let her take them out as she was struggling so bad. She has quite a severe over jet of 14mm so I’m worried they will take forever to work. Thanks again for all the advice and support on here it’s been so good to read through. Now where’s the wine?!! 😬

Mrsmagpie I feel your pain! I clearly remember my son's first day wearing blocks where we both left the orthodontist, got into the car and burst into tears.

My son was pretty miserable for a few days but honestly, within less than a week, he was fine. At first he couldn't eat in them but once he was used to them, he started eating soft things whilst wearing them and probably within a month he was eating all meals with them in.

My son had a pretty bad overjet, 10 mm I think, but the blocks worked incredibly quickly. I can't remember how quickly it reduced (but it will be detailed in earlier posts on this thread!) but it was dramatic. Within about 5 months he progressed to night time wear only.

Keep your chin up and don't let your daughter see how sad you're feeling. I promise that by this time next week neither of you will even notice them! and

Scarlett thanks so much for replying! She managed to sleep all night with them and seemed happy enough this morning before school. My husband took her in and said she seemed ok. Just hope the kids aren’t mean to her she’s the first one in her year to have them. Looking forward to us all being used to them even my husband was emotional this morning! I think like others said the chin looking like it’s jutting out is soo hard to get used to. Roll on half term we go to wales for a week on Saturday so family time to take her mind off it a bit hopefully! Thanks for listening xx

Good day at school thank fully and she seems happy tonight... I’ve noticed that the wire that runs along her top teeth has started to move up and down when she talks do you think it’s too loose? She seems to be able to un click the top one with only a slight movement with her tongue too so I’m thinking that’s not right? Looks like I’ll have to ring them in the morning already! 🙈

How's your daughter getting on MrsMagpie? It sounds like the wires might be a little loose, but they're really easy to adjust and would only take a couple of minutes at the orthodontist. Hope she's coping well with them?

Hi we are doing ok thank you, went back on Wednesday and had them tightened up a bit. She’s got a little ulcer on her tongue but apart from that doing ok! She’s managing to eat cereal in then but still taking them out for most meals but has been great about putting them straight back in. Her speech is still lispy and we are still getting used to the change in her appearance with that chin sticking out! But overall massively proud of how well she is doing ❤️

Good luck to those just starting, it does get easier and the more they wear them the quicker the result and move on to next stage. Ds finally had his fixed braces removed this week, I first posted here in 2014 when his twin blocks were put on! He has retainers to get used to now and back to a slight lisp but his teeth look great.

Hi really glad this thread is still going. I've only read page one and the last page so apologies if this has been answered before. Dd (13) had her first visit today and for overbite he suggests twin blocks or pulling the top teeth back. He said very convincingly that twin blocks seem a better treatment but it's a one year wait on nhs and he says she may then be too old as it has to be done during growth spurt.

We will have to do it privately which is £1500. So it's not huge but we have 4 kids and dh is on a one year contract and has been out of work on and off for the last few years so we've built up a bit of debt. However I think it's a really important thing for her and that we should pay it. I'm just worried that i'll be spending money on something we could have for free if we sit tight or we could go with the pulling back of the top teeth rather than realigning the jaw. do you think the blocks are significantly better treatment?

Hi ladies dd has had her twin blocks for 2 weeks now. She’s developed a lump on the inside of her lower gum where the lower brace plate sits. It’s really odd, it’s bright white and for a moment I thought it was a tooth growing!! But it’s soft to the touch and it’s like a flap of skin. Has anyone experienced this before?!!

Hi mrsmagpie, my son did have a large, white sore which lasted quite a while. It didn't hurt though so we didn't do anything about it. How's she coping with the blocks?

Hi, I’ve never posted on here before but I wanted to put something on as I think it will help some others like me. I’ve had twin block braces (I’m 14) since September now for an overbite I need correcting. When I came back from the orthadontist I was absolutely mortified, I felt I looked horrendous and I cried for ages, however I felt a bit better about it a couple of days later and really regretted getting so upset. It still does bother me a bit now as I feel quite self conscious about it, however some people said they didn’t even notice it. At the start I felt people were just being kind however I’m getting to the end of my treatment and some people still haven’t noticed or only just noticed, even though I have train tracks on now aswell!! My mum and dad let me have the rest of the day off as I couldn’t really speak properly at all, but that improved by the night and although my speech wasn’t perfect, I just kept my head down and tried not to speak, but it didn’t sound too bad. I just kept speaking to myself in the mirror and practicing. There wasn’t that much pain but just a bit of jaw ache, it’s not hurt in ages actually. It started to work within the first week or so and my teeth started to feel weird without the blocks in after a couple of weeks. I’m getting them off at my next orthadontist appointment, which will be 7 and a bit months I will have had them on for instead of 6-9 months which I was told which I’m quite happy about. They’re really not bad anymore and after the first month they felt normal in my mouth. I feel like when I get them out it’s going to feel weird without them in lol. I noticed from about the first couple of months that there is a gap inbetween my back teeth and they don’t meet like they did before. This makes chewing quite difficult and I’ve found it takes be ages to eat food, however this isn’t a bad thing seeing as though I used to eat really quickly. I spoke to my orthadontist who assured me the gap between my back teeth would close after my teeth straightened with train tracks and they would meet again like they used to. One good thing I’ve noticed also is that I’ve dropped a clothes size and I’ve noticed I look a lot slimmer since I’ve started with my blocks. I’m guessing this is because I now refuse sweets and biscuits, chocolate ect because I can’t be bothered to take my blocks out ahaha!! I’m extremely please s with the progress my blocks have made and the way I believe they work based on what the orthadontist told me is that they pull the bones in your jaw apart and the gap between them fills with bone, so they will never go back to how they were before as there is bone in the way. In January they put train tracks (regular braces) on my top 6 front teeth which I don’t know if it’s unusual or not for this to be done, however my othadontist says I need my front teeth need to stick out more over my bottom teeth so I don’t bite them off my bottom teeth (I know my teeth sound horrendous but they’re really straight lol it’s just my jaw that needs aligning lol). I have a couple of friends with blocks but they haven’t had the train tracks on at the same time as them. I’m really pleased with the progress I’ve made and it was well worth it, I wore them all the time and never took them out except for eating and sport ect. You can eat with them in but I preferred not to. Please wear them all the time because then you’ll just get them off quicker, if I hadn’t worn mine as religiously as I had I’d have ages left with my blocks now. Im so proud with myself with doing it I’m going to treat myself to a t shirt that I’ve wanted for ages, it’s a bit expensive so I was reluctant buying it but I thought I’d treat myself for putting up with it. I’m sorry this has banged on a bit but when I was at my start of the treatment I had no answers to my questions and I felt like I couldn’t be ringing my orthadontist up every 20 minutes, and there was no real information out there - especially about the gap between my back teeth.

Hi mh thank you got your lovely and helpful post I’m going to show it to my 10 year old daughter tomorrow and I’m sure it will be really helpful to her to hear a positive account from a young person rather than posts from worrying parents! 😂 my daughter has had hers on since Feb 12th and is doing so well with them we are so proud of her, she’s not managed to eat with them so she will be pleased to hear that didn’t halt your progress as I know she’s been worrying about that. It sounds like you’ve done a fab job with yours and it’s not easy being a teen with them I’m sure! Well done you and thanks again for being so thoughtful to post 😘 xx

Thankyou mrsmagpie x i know it was a bit lengthy lol ahah!! When I had mine I didn’t feel like there was much info so thought it might help someone else, as I wasn’t told much about mine other than the basic things x so jealous of your daughter to start so early with her treatment, her teeth will be so straight and perfect by the time she’s my age😍😍!!! Plus, she might not be as self concscious if she’s younger. Is she getting regular braces/train tracks after? They’re not too bad seeing as though most people my age have them anyway. She will be so far ahead of everyone else and when all her other friends are getting them she will be over and done with😁😁 tell her to keep wearing them lots and barely ever take them out, it’s actually amazing how much progress you make so quickly!!! Cheerz for the reply! Xx

If you have any more questions just ask💘

Bless you for replying I’m afraid I forgot to reply to you! 🙈 I showed my daughter your post and it was really helpful thank you again! We know she’s so lucky to start so early with them and hopefully like you say by the time her friends start treatment she will be finishing! She’s doing fantastically with them and I can see the change in her profile already. We go back to the orthodontist on Wednesday and I’m hopeful that there has been improvement... she has a 14mm overjey so lots of work to be done but hopefully she’s made a good start! X

Oh and yes the plan is for fixed braces afer this x