I was asked through my you tube channel how I bend the ball clasps across the occlusion I thought I would share our discussion in case any out there would be interested:
Hello there,
I’m having a challenge getting my occlusal wire bends out of the way of the bite. If someone has all their teeth in occlusion and no open spaces how are you getting the wires bent in such a way that the pt isn’t biting on them.
I am using ball clasps .028 .7mm from Henry Schein
are these too big?
Here is my answer to her:
Hello,
Sometimes there is no way to get the wires out of the way. The occlusion is so tight you cant slip any sort of wire in there! That is why some doctors ask for C clasps or wraparound retainers. But usually I try to make a reverse bend across the occlusion, meaning instead of bending straight across the occlusion, i make what looks like an “M” bend. It goes up over the buccal surface then down in between the teeth following the fossa contour of the teeth then back up following the contour between the lingual cusps of the 2 teeth you are bending the wire between. It should look and “M” from the side. wont work in every situation but will in most of the ortho cases.
One thing I do when I thing Im done is look down the occlusion from the distal of the mouth toward the front if you see any air between the wire and the teeth you need to go back and adjust the clasps. once you get it to where you cant see space then you got it about as good as you can get it.
Again, you will not be able to avoid interfering with the bite all the time, you will just have to use a different clasping technique.
I have one doctor that knows this so he tell his patients the mantra: “Lips Together, Teeth Apart” meaning: don’t bite down while you have the retainers in..028 ball clasps is what I use, you can get much smaller than that.
Here are some pictures, I obviously never had a good example of the “m” bend I was talking about once I come across a case like that I will definatly snap some pics and post them here.
