Should I seek a second opinion?

[immediatevisit]

Hello, our 12 year old son has been in "phase one" orthodontic care since 2022. He has endured palate expander and long period of braces (in my opinion). He has missed out on the full halloween candy experience for three years in a row. We finally got the braces off in December and were looking forward to a break.

His upper baby canine (his final baby tooth) had fallen out around 6 months before the braces were taken off without any sign of the permanent one when the braces were removed. His permanent canine on the other side was already erupted. I was worried about it at every appointment but the orthodontist said everything was fine. Sure enough the permanent canine began to erupt shortly after the braces were removed. I felt foolish for worrying. Better late than never. We were so relieved. Over time the canine began to appear out of place. It seems to have erupted in an "ectopic" position. It looks sort of like a snaggle tooth as my best description. It's raised higher than the neighboring teeth but the tooth itself seems about the size it's supposed to be. It appears to have erupted fully but in the wrong place.

I'm quite discouraged to be honest because one thing we really wanted was to avoid was extractions or oral surgery. Our son has a genetic condition that makes that type of procedure very risky.

We want to trust that the orthodontist would have a conservative option but we did all of this early intervention for the sole purpose of making room. I don't understand how it went so wrong without her noticing.

I can't imagine that she can suddenly make more room now with braces if she wasn't able to before. I had wondered if she was running out of space when she kept extending the amount of time he was in the braces. I feel like he would have benefitted from more space with the expander but now it's too late. We asked about it all the time and she always said everything was perfect.

I assumed she had a way of knowing. We would ask if there was room and she'd ALWAYS say yes.

I don't know what to do. We feel like giving up frankly. We are not preoccupied with having perfect teeth. We were simply trying to make room for his teeth and this snaggle tooth doesn't bother him or us enough to be worth extraction/surgery. Our orthodontist knew how important it was to us to avoid extractions and she never made us think anything was ever going on that direction.

Money is also tight for us. We spent a small fortune on what we've already had done and really didn't anticipate more expense this soon.

Thank you.

 

[Dr M]

Phase 1 means that there was a phase 2 planned. Either another set of braces or braces with jaw surgery. Did the orthodontist discuss when this phase 2 was planned to take place? Were they waiting for his growth to reach a certain stage. Around 12, he still has a growth spurt to go through.
An ectopic canine does not mean that the tooth will need to be extracted. Or even that jaw surgery will be indicated. This tooth can be moved into position in phase 2, after growth has stabilized.