Speechless

Are you sitting down? Are you sure? Are you drinking something? You might want to stop. Do you have children or are you thinking of having any? You may want to reconsider reading this post. I’ll just say this as a warning: I had a consultation with the orthodontist today concerning LM’s mess of a mouth. This post is about that meeting. If you are not sitting down, are sipping something you don’t want sucked up through your nose in shock or spat out at your computer monitor, or if you’d like to enjoy your children without a thought towards their dental expenditures, please stop reading now.

Seriously.

They took molds and x-rays three weeks ago. Tonight was a meeting to tell me how they recommend we proceed. It started with an explanation about the condition of LM’s mouth. Just looking at the x-rays I suspected I was in for a doozy. He explained that LM had some issues but it wasn’t a horrible scenario. He recommended an expander for the top and a gadget for the bottom that will tilt his teeth forward as they should be. They will be on for about nine months. When they are taken off, we’ll probably have to extract his two bottom eye teeth (he had three baby teeth extracted on the bottom already when the permanents failed to push out the babies, which is what’s happening with his eye teeth). We’ll wait for his twelve year molars to come in along with the other permanents that need to arrive before proceeding with the actual braces.

I asked how much the initial expander process would cost.

$2000.

I asked how much they would estimate the braces might be (although we obviously won’t know the true extent until we see the effects of the expander and his teeth coming in.)

$4500-6500.

I told you to sit down first.



Can I apply my Roth IRA towards orthodontics?

Seriously.

Comments

Wendy said…
HOLY CRAP! Wow. We are in the process of doing this right now too. My daughter received her 'head gear' this past Tuesday. Though she obviously doesn't have as much going on as your boy, she does have a mess in there. Her front teeth are very crowded, and as such her two front teeth are actually growing at an inward slant, thus impeding the proper growth of the bottom teeth/jaw. Her saving grace is they think she has no wisdom teeth, so she has room to fix this without extraction. She's on the head gear for 8 weeks, just to get things moving (12-14 hours a day) and then they'll brace the front 4 teeth only. After while, they'll do some more, and then after a year, remove it all and use retainers until her big girl molars come in. Then they'll rebrace for a short time until they're (we're) satisfied (that's the short story). BUT -- our grand total to the whole thing is $5000 ... $2000 now, and the rest later. Yours sounds ... WOW. I'm sure it has to do with extractions, and the widening device, etc. I know it hurts, but we're doing it. I don't want her growing up like 'snaggletooth'.
Jules said…
I plan to post about my own dental issues someday soon, even though it's extremely embarrassing. I had braces as a kid, though, and that worked out ok. The problems came later. Without going into detail, my dental problems will cost me upwards of $15,000. Make sure that he gets a retainer after all of this is said and done, or it will be for naught.

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