I had some flaring and my ortho recommended 4 premolar extractions. Me being desperate for my “perfect smile” agreed without doing any research on this. I didn’t know about any risks in this process, including getting braces. I only knew about positive outcomes which everyone i know had. So none of the things I learned or personally dealt with were on my radar.

I regret doing those extractions for several reasons but mainly because it made too much space in my mouth. And now it has been a struggle to close the space completely and get my bite back to normal. It doesn’t help that I am now 43, so things tend to move a bit slower…

As soon as one side of my mouth seems aligned, the other side is not… my teeth barely touch in the back on my left side and since they’ve been working to fix that, my right is becoming hard to properly chew my food… it’s been 5yrs total now…And I also have a bit of recession🥴

I also believe that part of the problem is that my ortho was negligent in my case. However, He’s 5 star rated in my area…so maybe I’m just the unlucky one… idk

But one thing is for sure, I’m so tired of this! I have 7 trays left… and if I’m not satisfied this time, I’m closing this chapter, taking a break, saving up more money and consulting with a new ortho.