Over the years, I’ve definitely heard of people doing this, usually with a single tooth or with gapped front teeth, but THIS is about people, usually kids, doing this will full-fledged braces! They’re using things everyone has in the house, like earring backs, paper clips, standard rubber bands, Super Glue, etc. and usually causing MORE damage in the process.
Speaking as someone who had bungled orthodontia that had to be done over twice, I’m here to say, “If you, or your child(ren), need braces, there’s a reason why it’s supposed to be done by a specialist.” Your teeth are worth it.
There are enough links, going back years, to prove that this is not yet another Tide Pods or condom-snorting thing.
Yes, and there are even You Tube videos of kids doing this.
If I had kids and one of them did anything like this, I’d take them to the dentist to have them removed in such a way that they wouldn’t be further harmed, and have the dentist give them a good talking-to about do it yourself medicine.
Yes I had to have braces as an adult in addition to two jaw surgeries to correct severe malocclusions in my bite, no way an amateur could have fixed that, it took two years and a whole group of surgeons and orthodontists planning together to make it happen.
The way my orthodontist explained to me, orthodontics came about from practicing on animals in the early days, I think he mentioned rabbits. As far as teeth falling out from amateur orthodontics that makes total sense, the underlying bone responds to stressors on the teeth and the bone is remodeled, my ortho stated there was kind of a sweet spot for moving the teeth and it can’t be too fast or too slow.
The way I see it (and I’m not a dentist, which is the point) there’s one way for your teeth to be right and there are probably hundreds of ways for your teeth to be wrong. The chance that an amateur is going to stumble on to that one right way is very small.
In addition to 4 years of dental school, board-certified orthodontists must obtain a master’s degree in orthodontics (an extra year, or possibly during the summers) and do a 2-year fellowship.
To me, this sounds like more a fashion thing, if anything. I looked at a video here and there, and it seemed to me like braces were considered kind of cool looking, or something, and the DIY braces were more a cosmetic thing to make it look like you had actual braces, rather than any belief in them straightening your teeth. Still not a good idea, but that’s the sense I get.
In grade school we used to fashion paper clips into braces and wear them around. As a kid I really wanted braces and glasses. I’m fortunate to have straight teeth and now that I need glasses I don’t want 'em.
Yea, it’s a ‘cool kid’ thing. When I was in jr. High there was about 4 kids who had braces. 2 of them were me and my sister. Now every other kid has them. They aren’t ‘cool’ they ache and keep food stuck in weird places. And it may not really do much to help your smile. They leave permanent marks on your teeth.
Now I see you can order orthodontics and do your straightening at home, no dentist involved. Seems risky to me.
I wouldn’t know how to stop kids from doing this crap. Trying to police thousands of kids getting instructions from YouTube is impossible.
Boggles my mind that it’s the cool thing now. I had braces during my early teens, and back then not many kids did.
If I had a buck for every time I was called ‘metal mouth’ or ‘tinsel teeth’, and not in a friendly-ribbing sort of way, it wouldn’t be new-car money, but it would be ‘throw one hell of a good party’ money. Hated the damn things, but better than going through life with buck teeth, so I’m glad I endured them.
The reason mine was bungled was because my parents insisted that it be done by our pediatric dentist, who also liked to do procedures without anesthesia :mad: , because in their opinion, taking a child to an orthodontist was just something people did to show off how much money they had to throw around, and I did indeed get a stern lecture for disgracing the family and stealing food off my siblings’ plates, something that didn’t happen a few years later when my sister also needed them.
This dentist was FINALLY put out of commission when he was discovered to have molested children. He didn’t do that to me, but he was able to stay in practice for so long because there were enough parents out there who told their kids that they, and not the kids, were in charge, and if you don’t like the dentist, too bad because I don’t either.
Well, of course you shouldn’t. That’s a terrible angle for you to be able to reach.
Have a friend do it for you (and you can reciprocate!).
I have done do-it-yourself dental work with a Dremel - something the company supposedly explicitly tells you not to do.
Of course, the “dental work” involved trimming a bite guard, which was not in my mouth at the time of the modification, but that’s not nearly as funny.
Back to the OP: hell, work done by a professional doesn’t always work out - my husband got braces as an adult; the ortho kept tweaking and tweaking to get things perfect, to the point where it wound up causing severe gum issues. He’s now looking at one root canal, one extraction / implant, and a hell of a lot of gum surgery :(.