Can anyone help with advice about overjet / overbite on DD.....denists/nurses please...

[Gymbob]

My 14 year old daughter has an overjet / or over bite. It's about 5mm I think. the orthodontist says she needs to have 2 teeth extracted then a brace fitted to bring her teeth back.

She is questioning the need to have teeth extracted, when one of her friends has a more severe overjet and has some gadget in her mouth to correct it. Of course I understand there is more to this than meets the eye, but does anyone have experience of this maybe with their own child? I have also wondered if it would change the shape of her face.

I thought it would be worth exploring any alternatives as extraction is a quite a drastic measure.

any comments at all would be appreciated

Hi op,

My dd has a 4ml overjet and after discussions with the orthodontist and dd, it was decided that to avoid extractions, we would try a twin block appliance to pull her bottom jaw forward a little.

Once the lower jaw has shifted sufficiently, dd will have train track braces fitted.

The only disadvantage is that the twin block affects speech and eating. It's removable and dd hasn't worn it as much as she should (24 hours a day) which means that the twin block treatment t will now take longer. She got it in Octoberand is going back in Feb to see if there has been enough improvement. If not she will need to keep the twin block for longer.

Google twin block brace, discuss with your dd and if you are both in agreement perhaps ask the orthodontist if it would be a compromise in you dd's case too.

Good luck

Hi Queenie, thanks so much for your reply. I'm going to google that now, but the speech bit bothers me as my daughter has speech difficulties to begin with and sometimes she is hard to understand, so I imagine this device would make her speech worse..........googling it now and thanks again

Hope your DD's treatment goes well and it does the trick..

Just googled that, and the pics do look rather intimidating don't they?!

It says that they are worn to bring the bottom jaw forward. I am told my DD needs to have her upper jaw brought back.

Is that one and the same thing?! Sorry to be so dim

An apologetic bump

Dd had a twin block when she was in year 6. Yes, at first it did affect her speech, but she persevered and a lot of that disappeared. She managed to eat in it and wore it all the time. As a consequence she only had to wear it for I think about 6-8months. It completely corrected her overjet - another orthodontist had suggested extractions and we are so glad she didn't go with that. She's now coming to the end of her braces wearing (in train tracks) and she is year 8, so overall it's been about 2 years of treatment.

However, I think twin blocks work best when they are going through their maximum growth, so it might not be suitable for your dd.

Thanks Kitty, I will have to explore every alternative before I go with extractions - it's so final isn't it.

I've just googled the age suitable, and she might be borderline, one was age 15/16, but one girl I found was 18. It's still going to be worth asking though.

Thanks again - btw what are train tracks?

Train tracks are the traditional braces that you see loads of kids wearing - the metal bands with little cemented brackets onto each tooth.

Thanks Kitty - can I ask did your dd have an overjet that was visible from outside, like was her chin further back than it should have been for instance. Some photo's I've seen are quite severe so I am wondering if they are used only for those instances?

It was. I can't remember her measurements but she easily qualified for nhs treatment.
I'm quite nervous about what it will be like when she gets them off has she been cleaning her teeth enough?
I hated the twin blocks at first because they changed the shape of her face so much, but they exaggerate the change and when they were out her face looked more mature but natural. I nearly tried to persuade she didn't need them but she was very determined to go with it.