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This is when the teeth are loosening to prepare to move. Most people do not see obvious movement during the early week or two.Originally Posted by Smile123
Brackets do not stain, but ligs, powerchains and elastics do. Some colour ligs will stain no matter what you eat, but certain foods/drinks do stain them more quickly. How much ... that's something you're going to have to check out, as it depends on so many things, like brand of coffee, black or white, how much milk etc etc etc. Also the shades of ligs ... clear, opaque, pearl, tooth coloured etc etc etc. Tomato, tumeric and some other foods with red and yellow colours in them, appear to stain most shades of ligs quickly. Yellow foods will turn blue ligs green ... and so on. I've found that black and purple don't stain ... which is great. Also wire ties don't stain. We offer teflon coated wire ties (white) to patients who want discreet braces.
... I floss every day ... and it's made no difference to my treatment time ... which has in fact blown out by more than a year. What it has meant though, is my gums are in excellent health. Great oral hygiene is important, but it's not known to increase treatment. Instead ... poor oral hygiene can delay treatment ... so that's definitely to be avoided.
You should be flossing once a day to keep your gums healthy. To begin with, flossing will take longer, but with practise it will soon get faster. Something you need to think about, are you prepared to risk having ortho treatment, and not looking after your gums and having to deal with gum disease in a few years ... and the possibility of your teeth falling out!
I had crowding, but my ortho didn't take teeth out, instead he's used IPR to remove some enamel from teeth to help make space and the archwires are doing the rest. Teeth aren't removed very often any more ... but there are still cases when it's necessary.
Gaps closing is an individual thing. We like to think that teeth will move about 1 mm a month ... but many don't ... some will move faster and some will move slower. My upper gap, over an impacted canine, has taken nearly two years to close ... damn nightmare of a gap!
Ummm anytime from now to maybe three months ... that's if you have loads of alignment work needing to be done.
It's a misconception ... brackets do not move teeth and it will take the same amount of time, as it's the archwires etc that do the work, and they're the same with the different brands of brackets. The new brackets are made with materials that allow the archwire to move as it needs to. Sometimes friction is necessary to help teeth move ... and sometimes it's not ... and any good ortho will make sure this does or doesn't happen as is necessary ... no matter what type of bracket.
Great questions ... it's good that you're thinking so sensibly about your treatment.
Good luck!
