Orthodontic work - how early?

[Glamourcide]

Thanks Trill, I thought it would be something like that - I think I was in grade 6 or so when I started my orthodontic journey so I would have been about 10 or 11 :/ It was so horrible, I was hoping DD1 could get *some* help with her little mouth before she's old enough to really have it stick with her for life! But then again, at this age it would be pretty hard to get her to wear a retainer/plate every day (I even had one that I had to turn screws in every week to stretch my jaw out, pretty tricky stuff at that age!) I just want to fix it now before it gets worse, poor bub! I was just looking at photos of myself just before I got my plates and my mouth looked SO horrible

[Trillian]

Well we went to the dentist today and he's given her a reprieve LOL. He took another mould of her mouth and compared it to the first one and he can see that slowly things are improving on their own. So he wants another review in 6 months when she has her next regular check up. Fingers crossed that as your DD1 grows, she gets a bit more room for her teeth so the problems aren't too bad

[toomanyshoes]

They should get checked out at about 8-9.

We had DS checked out late last year and he's going to need work both pre and post puberty. At the moment she wants to wait a little longer (another 6months) before starting the plan of attack. He'll need a plate in the bottom to hopefully lengthen his jaw and braces late high school to pull everything into line.

He's basically ended up with his fathers jaw which we ended up getting fixed 4-5 years ago and because it wasn't done when he was a kid he required surgery on upper and lower plus a long treatment of bracers and having a wirer permanently fixed in place behind his bottom teeth......oh the money we spent but it was needed his x rays were just scary, so much bone had already worn away because of the strain!

[Beach Mama]

Both my nieces needed lots of jaw work and from memory they got their first thing on the roof of their mouth that they turned a key on to change the shape of their jaw at around 13. Both have had braces and the one who has them off has a gorgeous smile now - worth all the pain and $$ and the other chicky has a few years to go but she's only 15. Good luck Im pretty sure ours will need them too with both of us having shocking teeth

[Olive]

does she suck her thumb or have a dummy?
the gaps are good believe it or not, that means she will have room for her adult teeth to come through.
its worth getting her regular dental checks as that way you're in the system so to speak, early work can happen but is a very much an individual thing.
at this age there is nothing you can do

as a dental nurse im devastated that DD1's thumb sucking has created issues, she will need early intervention as well