Hey friends! Latest AGGA/CAB video update is up on YouTube, and as promised, below is a snapshot from my CBCT scan.
First, to summarize the video: this was supposed to be the appointment where my dentist showed me my CBCT results, told me that I had plenty of space and bone for implants (as expected), and referred me to the implant dentist for an initial consultation and to get on the books.
INSTEAD, he told me that despite having 7mm gaps in my mouth, I do not have 7mm gaps between the roots below the surface, which means not enough room for implants.
This was a huge bomb drop, since we’d been aligned from the beginning that the plan was to do implants, and he never once had any doubts that that would be possible for me. Up until he looked at the CBCT.
I was pretty taken aback, and he said that if I “held his feet to the fire,” he’d definitely try some things to make enough space – uprighting the teeth on each side, maybe doing a couple more bump-outs in the front, etc. But in his professional opinion, he thinks we should skip the implants and just bring my molars forward to close the gaps.
I pressed him on this pretty good, voicing concerns about relapse being more likely without implants, difficulty moving molars without losing growth, etc, but he’s extremely confident that he can give me great results this way. He said that if there was any part of him that thought we were sacrificing results by not doing implants, he would figure out how to make the implants work.
He also said that he’s thrilled with how my jaw looked on the CBCT, so he just wants to keep everything in place where it’s at, and again, is extremely confident he can do that by simply bringing my molars forward.
So, I’m trusting him. No implants. Bringing molars forward. I’ll most certainly not be out of braces by the end of this year, but it’s possible I could still be out of them by my 28th birthday in early March…wish me luck.
(And…skipping the implants does save me about $10k. So that softens the blow a bit.)
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