In her 20s, my wife had braces, mainly to fix her 2 front teeth. The treatment included removable expanders (not to expand the palate, but to help move teeth backwards), fixed metal brackets, and headgear.

For me, it was great, although I never dare let on that I had a "thing" for braces.... my wife is very straight-laced, and would find the idea of a braces fetish to be weird and maybe close to gross.

She never kept on with wearing her reatainers, and now, 30 years on, she has a similar problem with her teeth: the top front one are both twisted outwards, plus the lowers are a bit crowded.

So, I was amazed and pleasantly surprised when tonight she told me that she was considering having orthodontic treatment. Of course, I had to do my best to pretend not to know too much about braces, yet at the same time, encourage her.

The even better thing, from my perspective, was that she said that, whist she was aware of "invisilign", because she was hardly in a public-facing job, she feels that she will probably go for "train tracks".

So, she is going to ignore her dentist (who pointed her to a single local orthodontist) and plans to see maybe 3 orthodontists to see what they suggest!

I wonder if she'll get headgear again? I n a way, I rather hope she does!

She was not very impressed, as she never ACTUALLY got to meet the ortho himself

That's interesting. My wife had a similar experience with one of her recent consults. The treatment coordinator took pictures, x-rays and scans and apparently presented them to the orthodontist who was elsewhere in the practice. He then generated a treatment plan without ever seeing my wife in person. This made my wife quite uncomfortable, so she dismissed that practice, despite the fact that it was VERY nice.

Visit #3:again she was seen by the orthodontist himself, and from what I can gather, the practicalities were similar to #2.

One slight difference in the treatment: whilst #2 would have brackets all the way back, as "normal", #3 only wants to place brackets on her front teeth (not quite sure how far back), as her bite is actually very good, and he doesn't want to upset her bite.

When she came back yesterday, I took a look at her teeth: lowers need tidying a little, the main issue on the uppers is that the front two have rotated... so in principle, just need rotating back. There's a small gap between her front two teeth, and a couple of tiny gaps between her 2nd and canines.... so I guess enough to no need to create more space (which makes sense, because if her molars haven't shifted since her original treatment about 30 years ago, the space should still be there)

And #3 is marginally cheaper, and something like £2800.

I don't remember if it was Ortho #2 or #3 who suggested it could take under a year for the treatment.

What has surprised me is (a) you look online, and you hear about "braces between £2000 and £2500" (https://dereferer.me/?https://dereferer.me/?http://www.thedentalguide.net/braces-cost-uk); (b) her treatment seems to be fairly simple... so why are all her quotes above that magical £2500"?

(and yes, ceramic brackets and invisilign have both also been offered, at a higher price)

My wife had a letter from Ortho #1 (the "invisible Ortho") asking if she was wanting to start treatment with them (standard letter, I guess, when they've not heard from the potential patient). She emailed back with her concerns (that she didn't see the ortho) and received a very pleasant email back, saying that yes, maybe they need to explain better to potential patients what to expect during the initial visit. She's still not planning on going there though!

Today she's off to see ortho #4.

Looking online at some other "not as local" orthos, she found one that doesn't advertise metal brackets for the private patients, but offers invisilign, lingual brackets, and "Glam" braces (= clear ceramic).... she got a bit interested in the ceramics, but I pointed out that, whilst the brackets don't stain, the clear ligatures used will stain. So she's back to metal brackets, and probably the Damon brackets.

(It was amusing, when reading about ceramic brackets, the manufacturer etc sites say "less pain, because ceramics move your teeth more slowly", but other sites then highlight that ceramics have to use less force as higher forces can damage the ceramic brackets. Talk about making a feature from a limitation!)

It's also interesting to note that the prices here are well above the "£200 to £2500 typical prices" for private treatment in UK. So I looked in other surrounding areas, to find that there were hardly any private orthos around: clearly, where I live is an "affluent area", which attracts orthos.... the other areas are less affluent = fewer people willing to pay £££ for braces!