Another Happy Patient

It's a pleasure to present "Another Happy Patient": I recently finished braces for a young woman who had had braces as a child, but she was never happy with the result, and the teeth had gotten more crowded as she got older. Her biggest problem was that she could only close her teeth on one tooth in the back, so it was difficult to eat. Her upper jaw was way too narrow for her lower jaw, and the lower teeth were very crowded. We had discussed surgery to make the upper jaw wider, but she was not interested. We decided on a compromise- treatment that included extracting two lower teeth, and wearing braces for up to two years. Since she was so anxious to be done with braces, we ended treatment after only 1 year and 3 months. The patient was so happy! She reported that “just from a ‘I can eat salad’ standpoint, it’s so much better. We knew it was going to be a compromise but I wasn’t going to do surgery. My teeth are so straight now, and it’s so much easier to close my lips. Thank you so much Dr. Okun.”