Braces for an Eight Year Old, Update #2

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This past week our eight year old son had a final appointment with his orthodontist… Given that we’re moving (I’m actually writing this from a Holiday Inn in the midst of our move), we wanted to have one last checkup before finding a new orthodontist to go along with our new home. Guess what? We were told that his partial braces and quad helix had corrected his underbite and cross-bite (respectively), and that he was ready to be fitted for a retainer.

Wow! He got his braces less than six months ago, and we were originally told that it would take close to a year and a half (and that he might also need ‘reverse head gear’ to correct the underbite). Rather than jumping the gun, however, my lovely and talented wife asked that they leave his braces in place. Otherwise we’d run the risk that our new orthodontist would want him back in braces, and would have to put them back on.

While this felt like a great decision decision at them time, we started having second thoughts the night before our move… Our dishes (along with everything else) were packed, so we went out to eat. Just after the food came and we all started to dig in, our braces-wearing-big-boy announced that he had broken his ‘palate expander’ (the quad helix). I checked his mouth and, sure enough, he had cracked it right where it attached to the band around his molar. Crap! What to do? Cooler heads prevailed, and we resolved to get an emergency appointment with the orthodontist the next morning while the movers were loading our stuff.

As it turns out, our orthodontist was in his ‘out of town’ office for the day (he splits time between an office within a few minutes of our house, as well as one about a half hour away). No worries though, they could see our son at 11:00. To make a long story short, my wife and all four boys piled in the minivan and headed out while I babysat the movers. The verdict was that our son’s quad helix could come off, and that the arch wire would hold his teeth in place. No need to panic — just followup with our new orthodontist in six weeks.

And later that afternoon we pulled out of our driveway for the very last time.