orthodontia....

If you had told me a year ago - even 6 months ago - that we would be considering orthodontia for Dominic, I would've told you that you were crazy.

Yeah.
So.
Today we had a consult with an orthodontist who comes very highly recommended by our pediatric dentist.
That we were even willing to attempt this consult should tell you that Dominic has come MILES in the last few months.


What we are most urgently addressing is crowding on Dominic's upper palate that is keeping his adult canines from having space to drop in.  Secondary concern is an "anterior cross bite with an anterior functional shift".

Couple of things that are fabulous:
- Dominic ROCKED the exam, did great following directions for pictures and xrays
- The routine shift of spending almost 90 minutes in a strange office instead of going to school didn't phase him.
- somehow we have some insurance coverage for this, so our portion is WAY LESS than I was expecting and in fact if we choose their payment plan (1/3 down then the remainder spread out over the next 12 months), we won't even feel it financially.  We decided on the way home that all the years of STUPID expensive out of pocket autism treatment has completely jaded us.


so we have some options to discuss with our regular dentist next month.

1. Plan A - regular dentists does sedation and removes adult teeth.  cons: sedation is a crapshoot and per the orthodontist, that could make his underbite worse.

2. Plan B - the everything plan:  upper and lower braces; palate expanders / reverse pull headgear at night.  cons: Sensory boy in headgear?? you must be kidding.

3.  Plan C - Just upper braces addressing the spacing issue only for now.  Pros: Leaves a full spectrum of options for later should we think he could do plan B later.  And if we did plan B later if would just be an additional $400 (insurance!)


Interestingly Plan A and Plan C are roughly the same amount out of pocket.   We are leaning towards plan C.