Phase 1 orthodontics for an 8 year old?

Question

Hi!

I took my 8 year old daughter to the dentist today and was told that she needed phase 1 orthodontic treatment. The reason being is that her mouth is very small and her permanent teeth on the top do not have room to come in properly. She has her permanent front teeth and eye teeth. They want to put a device in the roof of her mouth that will create spaces by expanding her teeth thus allowing the other teeth to come down. She also has an extra permanent tooth on the bottom, she has 5 instead of 4. The 4 have come in but in the X-ray you can see the extra tooth. On top of this she has a "deep bite" her top teeth completely cover her bottom teeth when she bites down.

The dentist wants to start phase 1 orthodontics and put in the device. I am worried because she is so young and I know that the expansion devices hurt a great deal. My question is if this is really necessary or can we wait until she is 11 or 12 and get regular braces since she will need them regardless??
Also has anyone experienced phase 1 and phase 2 or had/has a child that has?

I plan on taking her to a pediatric orthodontist (the dentist we went to today is a family dentist that does orthodontic work) to get a second opinion but in the meantime I'm doing some research.


Thank you for reading and for any advice you may have!

Answer 1

Most orthodontic procedures will cause some amount of pain. The orthodontist knows whats right, and your daughter is lucky to have early treatment, with her growing so fast at that age it will make the time of the appliance being in the mouth shorter, lead to less visits and before you know it it will be off. I used to be on an emergency waiting list and I kept on getting knocked to the bottom and pushed behind people because my problems didn't need treating straight away because apparently they weren't serious enough, then I was put on a normal waiting list for two years, this is at age seven, five years later I got a pallet brace because my friend recommended an orthodontist to me and I got my brace eight weeks later, and my orthodontist got really annoyed that I hadn't have been seen five years before that, and I got a new dentist and he was really annoyed, and its caused problems on my mouth because my other dentists negligence, and they cant fix some of the problems, but my ortho has done a good job, but honestly, let your orthodontist do the treatment now. You don't want what happened to me to happen to her, its horrible! The pain off appliances isn't un bearable, and it doesn't last long, the treatment wont last long, my fixed brace was on for 11 month because my ortho was doing everything he could as fast as he could! They may end up extracting teeth from your daughters mouth, well maybe the extra one, but if he puts on the expander she may not have to deal with it. Get her the treatment,

best wishes! :)

Answer 2

The earlier expansion is done the more stable the results. Expansion can be done as early as 3 or 4 years of age so at 8 your daughter is not too young at all. Expansion also does not hurt and the only thing the patient will feel (regardless of age) is a bit of tightness so you are misinformed about expansion hurting and totally wrong. Waiting until your daughter is older is NOT a good idea and braces are not strong enough to expand jaws anyway, they only move teeth. BTW, there is no Phase 1 or Phase 2 orthodontics. What your daughter needs is called interceptive orthodontics to avert potentially severe orthodontic problems later (as in waiting until she is 11 or 12)..

Answer 3

Depending on the case, if phase 1 is done then treatment time is much simpler requiring fewer visits over a quicker period. If phase 1 is not done, then it can take much longer and is more likely to involve extracting teeth to create space.

Answer 4

I disagree with tooth975 that expansion doesn't hurt. Perhaps the questioner knows someone who actually went through the procedure and told her it hurt... a lot. Just because it didn't hurt one person, or two, or one hundred, doesn't mean it won't hurt anyone.

Answer 5

8 year olds have BIG SCARY TEETH? 8 year old unicorns? I have big scary teeth. I shall eat the unicorns with them... chop chop... Except You're the Dream Unicorn who has answered already. HE is the KING OF YAHOO ANSWERS! Long live the.. Anyway... what was the question?