I had a terrible terrible overbite as a kid. I did a round of braces in my early teens and didn’t wear my retainer. My teeth shifted back by my 20s. In 1999, at the age of 27, I did another round of braces, followed up by some pretty major jaw surgery (lower jaw moved forwards, upper jaw widened and raised). I have worn my retainers (upper and lower!) faithfully ever since and I have lovely, lovely teeth.
I went from a person who smiled behind her hand to a person who flips down the rear view mirror in the car just to admire the smile.
And it wasn’t part of the poll, but I’m an excellent flosser/brusher and I’ve never had a cavity!
Mine are horrible. I chose the last option. They’re pretty crooked, and I’m self-conscious about them, especially in pictures, where I try not to open my mouth.
I have been to an orthodontist, who said I have 100% overbite and that it is pushing my jaw back further than it should go. The way my teeth come together is also wearing down some of my bottom front teeth. I can go on living normally, but unless I’m distracted by something interesting I can constantly feel my teeth and jaw, because if I am awake, they are uncomfortable or hurting. It can make it hard to get to sleep.
Also, they’re not even symmetrically crooked - on the top I have one tooth that goes back while the other one goes out in front. On the bottom, they are just so crowded. One of my teeth is turned sideways.
Honestly, if it weren’t for the pain I don’t think I’d care, but I definitely want to get them fixed one day!
I picked ‘minor issue but not had any work done’. The teeth that are visible when I talk or smile are all perfectly straight. Further back, some of my molars are crooked but from a vanity perspective it makes no difference. They are pretty yellow, but you said not to count that.
I don’t have as many teeth as I should have though. No wisdom teeth (yet - how late can they come in?) but neither of my parents got any, so I am crossing my fingers that I won’t either.
Naturally, they’re pretty bad. I had a horrendous overbite as a kid and ended up with braces for four and a half years, plus a couple of extractions because there just wasn’t room for them all to fit.
The front ones are never going to be perfectly straight. Well, maybe they would have been if I had worn retainers until I got married, like my orthodontist told me to do, but since it’s sixteen years later and I’m still not married, it seemed like overkill. Anyway, I’m not fussed about it, and neither is my current dentist.
[Slight digression, because I think it speaks to some of the class issues in the other thread.] I once went to my parents’ dentist, in a much higher-income part of the country, and his reaction was something like “OMG, you must get braces at once or those teeth will start to die and you will need ROOT CANALS, and you are much too young for that sort of thing!” I ignored this, because frankly, I’ve had both braces and a root canal, and there’s no contest – I’d much, much rather have a root canal. Anyway, the new dentist, in smalltown Mississippi, thinks they’re OK as they are; my old dentist, at the university dental school in North Carolina, thought they were OK; it is, apparently, only yuppie dentists in Fairfax County, VA, who think slightly crowded teeth are an emergency.
I am exceptionally lucky to have exceptionally strong enamel from both sides of the family - none of my grandparents have ever had a cavity! I’ve been to many dentists in my life (and I’m just 23) and they’ve all commented on how strong my enamel is.
However, my mom’s family has huge teeth - like Hollywood teeth/veneers, almost. I got those. I got those with my Dad’s family’s tiny jaw, so to make them all fit, I’ve had teeth pulled - I have 24, the average person has 32. Braces helped straighten them all out too
As I get older, my teeth continue to move. They are not as good as they were 30 years ago when I got my braces off.
I probably have never had a cavity. I have four fillings, but I think the dentist drilled perfectly good teeth. (The key piece of evidence: the last time I went to him, he told me I had a cavity that he’d get to the next visit. No one has ever found that cavity.)
I have minor imperfections and have not had any work done. I have a really big overbite that is not fixable. To do so would render me unable to chew my food. Cosmetically, you would barely notice.
I have Hollywood teeth (white, straight, square) but I do have quite a large overbite. I had braces to correct it as a teenager, and once they came off I didn’t wear my retainer and my wisdom teeth came in perfectly, so it’s right back where it belongs (I told my parents I didn’t want those goddamn braces). Since I have no gaps, crowding or crookedness it’s not noticeable.
I had a couple cavities (supposedly) and fillings when I was 11 or 12, none since. Good teeth (health-wise and in appearance) run in my family.
My front baby teeth fell out all at once and as they grew back in, one of my canine teeth never did. I kept nagging my mom about my missing canine tooth but she kept brushing it off, saying I was mistaken. Then I went to the dentist in 6th grade (I have a slight overbite and my mom was thinking of braces for me) and the dentist discovered my canine tooth still up there. She said it would be fine because it didn’t look like it was going to come out anyway.
Well, it did. Later I went to see another dentist who told me that in order to fix my overbite I’d have to get surgery becuse all my teeth had moved over a spot to fill in the gap where my canine should be. (My canine came in BEHIND all my other teeth.) I decided to just live with my fucked up teeth.
I had braces which got my teeth pretty much perfectly aligned (except the back ones.) Unfortunately, they were unable to fix my jaw, and I still have a massive underbite. They wanted to do surgery, but they did not think I’d be able to handle it.
It still causes headaches from time to time. In particular, I can’t open my jaw as wide as most people without inflaming my TMJ.
My teeth are quirky (although not as bad as Bowie’s real biters), but they have never caused me medical problems. My mother took me to the dentist for braces when I was 11; he recommended against braces because I had the best bite he’d ever seen. I have one capped tooth and a couple of fillings, all in my back teeth. Dentists used to tell me I’d need my wisdom teeth taken out but they’re still there, all 2 1/2 of them.
I did have the surgery, and it was amazing. They brought my lower jaw forward and also widened and raised my upper palate.
My orthodontist first suggested the surgery during my initial round of braces as a child (early 80s). At the time, the surgery was very invasive and my parents decided against it. My second orthodontist floated the idea of the surgery during my second round of braces (late 90s). It was one of the best things I have ever done - my terrible locking jaw that I would have to press on the hinge sometimes - fixed!
And cosmetically, the difference is huge. I have a chin, I have a decent profile. My smile used to be mostly gums, now it’s all pretty teeth.
Disclaimer - As a result of the surgery - I do have some permanent numbness in my lower left lip. I would still have the surgery again in a heartbeat.
I wasn’t really sure which answer to pick, since naturally my teeth were a huge mess. Cysts around my wisdom teeth, overcrowding to the point where my adult teeth were growing in BEHIND my baby teeth, like a row of shark’s teeth, rather than pusing them out - plus adult teeth growing up behind other adult teeth because there was no room where they were supposed to go, TMJ, etc. They’re OK now, but not naturally.
I had braces for years, which fixed a lot of that, plus my wisdom teeth were taken out when I was 15 (before they errupted, not like there was room for them to grow in anyway).
Cosmetically, they look fine now, though I still have bite issues which could probably be fixed by braces on just my bottom teeth now. It causes me headaches and jaw aches sometimes, but nothing that’s worth spending the money on at this point. The front bottom teeth are visibly a bit crooked, but not bad (they were the worst to begin with).