Got crossbite following ortho treatment, what to do?

Question

Hi doctor,

I have had braces before two years. During that time, I had a jaw expander for my upper teeth as they were too crowded. I was wondering if my dentist is giving me false information because she is scared as she will ruin my teeth. From my picture the lip piercing side is my left side and the front of my teeth, the tooth that is on the right of my bunny tooth is a few mm behind the rest of my teeth. I recently consulted a specialist because the bunny tooth next to that tooth was losing the root and was hurting. They said we needed to stop my brace pressure as soon as possible. So, I asked my dentist if she could fix the tooth that is slightly behind the bunny tooth and the one beside it. After being persistent, she tweaked it a little to help it. Now the real issue I am having is, in image 2100 which is the image on the side showing my lip piercing, it shows that my teeth are good. However the image 2101, which is the side image without my lip piercing, my upper teeth and lower teeth are touching tip to tip. I also noticed that these particular teeth are slanted inwards towards my tongue rather than being straight like the rest of my teeth. The dentist told me that my teeth have worn from all the grinding that I do. However, when I check face front you can clearly see that the upper teeth are slanting inwards and I do remember when doing elastics, it was pulling them down from a lot of pressure. I believe this is a cross bite. The dentist would not admit it and saying there is nothing to be fixed. I have checked past photos before I had braces and from close inspection the cross bite area was never like that, in fact the upper teeth overlapped the bottom teeth and was fine in that area. I am wondering whether my dentist is correct that my teeth are fine and that it cannot be fixed? I am pretty sure if she put a button behind the tooth and then I did elastics, it not be fixed and brought forward and overlap the bottom teeth. My current medication is Doxycycline. Please help me.

Answer 1

Hi,

Welcome to icliniq.com.

By looking at the photos (attachment removed to protect patient identity), it seems that the tooth is slightly tilted. It is definitely due to the pulling force of the elastics to close the spaces and bring the teeth into alignment. The slight inward tilt is normal in the final stages, as dentists do it to compensate for the small relapse, which will occur when you will have your braces removed. It will correct in the next six months or so when you will be using the retainers. All dentists over do the tilt by some margin as all teeth have a tendency to go back to its original position. There is no cross bite condition (upper teeth in front of lower teeth) in you, which is an entirely different thing than you are imagining. The edge to edge alignment on your right side which you mentioned is the only thing which should have been corrected when possible. But, there might be not enough space to correct it thus dentist might have left it like that, still it does not seem to be worrisome to me. Overall everything seems to be fine in your treatment and there could have been some more improvement in alignment, but due to lack of enough space between your teeth, he might have finished like this only.