Had a young patient in for the first time last week, accompanied by her mum. They both knew what needed fixed - a top tooth biting inside the lower teeth instead of outside them: a crossbite.
I went through my usual orthodontic assessment for a new patient, measuring this and that, but I also asked “would your teeth stop you smiling for a photo?”
“Yes.”
I could see her mum’s face change tone, and she said “you never said that, you never told me you didn’t smile.”
At the end of the appointment, after she’d left the room her mum said the same thing to me “she’d never told me she didn’t smile. I’d no idea”. She was genuinely taken aback.
But today we’ll start to put that right. In a few months that tooth will be in its correct position and she’ll be wanting the braces removed while I’ll still be trying to sort out some back teeth and I’ll be trying to encourage her to keep going even though we've fixed the problem that made her come to us.
But we’ll get there and her teeth won’t be reason for not smiling anymore.
And that’s why I love being an orthodontist.
