I think the fellow did tell his parents. His mom is an RN. :)
There weren't any really concrete medical benefits for my braces (resulting or expected), but one of my front teeth was REALLY crooked. And I have pretty big front teeth, so the quality-of-life issue was valid enough for me. In fact, I recently had the formerly-crooked one ground down a bit to match the other one (dentist did it for free, hooray). It's still just a tad crooked but now that they are the same length it's not really noticeable. So I guess my case was mostly (if not purely) cosmetic, because I too am skeptical of the other claimed improvements.
The jasper-jumper (torture) devices were supposed to correct my overbite and align my teeth better for improved eating, or something. I got a little of the former and a bit of the opposite of the latter, in addition to the aforementioned TMJ problems. These "benefits" were in exchange for a year of only being able to open my mouth about half of its potential range and the additional pain of installation and adjustment of the devices on top of the usual monthly re-wiring and tightening of the braces. I can still freak some people out by yawning with my mouth barely open. And I was furious that I had no real input in that particular decision and felt misled about the results and benefits.
I guess mouths are complicated things and they're all different, but in light of our experiences and others I've heard about, there's at least a small degree of quackery and misrepresentation in the orthodontry(?) industry. Man, yours sounded like way more of a torture device than the things I had. My pain was at least restricted mostly to the lower half of my skull. I too would have a hard time deciding to do all that in lieu of just getting a few teeth yanked later.
Another anecdote: after a particularly painful adjustment appointment, I couldn't eat solid food for three or four days. I got into my dad's supply of slimfast because whatever I was drinking wasn't as nutritious and was getting boring. He yelled at me for it because it was expensive, but I fired right back with an update on my pain status and that surely he could shell out a few more bucks on top of the $2.5k he was spending because I was a girl and girls need pretty teeth. My but he turned penitent real fast. :)
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timeasmymeasure
Re: braces
Date: 2007-06-19 07:15 pm (UTC)There weren't any really concrete medical benefits for my braces (resulting or expected), but one of my front teeth was REALLY crooked. And I have pretty big front teeth, so the quality-of-life issue was valid enough for me. In fact, I recently had the formerly-crooked one ground down a bit to match the other one (dentist did it for free, hooray). It's still just a tad crooked but now that they are the same length it's not really noticeable. So I guess my case was mostly (if not purely) cosmetic, because I too am skeptical of the other claimed improvements.
The jasper-jumper (torture) devices were supposed to correct my overbite and align my teeth better for improved eating, or something. I got a little of the former and a bit of the opposite of the latter, in addition to the aforementioned TMJ problems. These "benefits" were in exchange for a year of only being able to open my mouth about half of its potential range and the additional pain of installation and adjustment of the devices on top of the usual monthly re-wiring and tightening of the braces. I can still freak some people out by yawning with my mouth barely open. And I was furious that I had no real input in that particular decision and felt misled about the results and benefits.
I guess mouths are complicated things and they're all different, but in light of our experiences and others I've heard about, there's at least a small degree of quackery and misrepresentation in the orthodontry(?) industry. Man, yours sounded like way more of a torture device than the things I had. My pain was at least restricted mostly to the lower half of my skull. I too would have a hard time deciding to do all that in lieu of just getting a few teeth yanked later.
Another anecdote: after a particularly painful adjustment appointment, I couldn't eat solid food for three or four days. I got into my dad's supply of slimfast because whatever I was drinking wasn't as nutritious and was getting boring. He yelled at me for it because it was expensive, but I fired right back with an update on my pain status and that surely he could shell out a few more bucks on top of the $2.5k he was spending because I was a girl and girls need pretty teeth. My but he turned penitent real fast. :)