The Facebook case report on aligner treatment.
Last week I finally got the COVID, and I spent too long looking at social media while I was laid up. I came across several social media case reports on clear aligner treatment. Here is a lighthearted look at the central themes of these reports.
Aligner treatment of anterior open bite!
I am honoured and humbled to present this case report. He is an adult male with malleable teeth and anterior open bite with spacing.
These are 12-month progress. I only saw the patient once during this time. I need to do some refinements, but we are nearly there. You can see what we achieved. I closed the anterior open bite by intruding the molars with hand pressure. Its not a bad result for clear aligner treatment.
I have no intention of posting up the final photographs or providing even a cursory analysis of the effects of this treatment. Furthermore, I don’t intend to post up or analyse any radiographs.
We have done a lot of research on this treatment and will publish it soon……..
I will now wait for the sycophantic comments praising my great treatment and my role in improving my followers’ lives.
Declaration: I was not paid to publish this post, but I am a KOL for the clear aligner company and get paid a substantial amount, but this does not influence me..
Now, where is that pile of aligner boxes for me to balance?
Excellent. This is what we see the most. Oh yeah! I missed the boxes 😪
The consumer/patient looks delighted with the results and will no doubt continue to wear their Aligners at night ‘for life’ – not ‘just for Christmas’
Hope you’ve have fully recovered from said virus
Kevin you have a one track mind. Hope you’re better soon.
Really nice arch development, the smile arc looks amazing, no buccal corridors! As you said, radiographs wouldn’t add anything substantial, but it would be great to visualize his airway in 3d before and after!
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
Hi, yes, I forgot the airway. Bu the play dough patient has a massive airway!
The play dough patient also has Cl II….
I was happy to see the Play-Doh drill and fill man again. Are you a Hasbro KOL speaker now?
I am a fan of clear aligners and I enjoyed your post. As always. I can only agree with you. We hear terrible things from KOL speakers. Things like: «There was never a single root resorption with clear aligners» (I heard that recently!). And what makes me smile the most, is when some are showing their cases and as the final result, they show the clincheck! The virtual setup!
Needless to say, we see the same kind of behavior with fixed appliances KOL as well. « Some of them wanted to sell me some snake oil and I’m not necessarily going to dismiss all of these, as I have never found a rusty snake. » Terry Pratchett
Kevein
get help! – COVID has obviously seriously affected you. 🙂
meanwhile we await the outrage from various (usual) sources
I hope you’re recovering and getting better.
You showed 2 and a half years of resistance to COVID…that’s awesome 👌.
Great results… but you seem to have missed the extra-oral photographs.
Dear Kevin,
Hope you are feeling better soon. KOKO
Smile,
Joe
Hope you are feeling better. I needed a good laugh today! Thank you.
this is one of the best treated cases i have ever witnessed, and i think covid has diminished my thought processes (as i am recovering from covid this week myself)
We see many cases being started, but unfortunately we don’t see cases finished with final radiographs.
This might be the best treatment outcome ever in your professional and academic life Prof!!
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
Thanks it certainly was the faster treatment I have done!
I hear it’s become acceptable to just post the cephs up and ask other people to trace them for you because you can’t be arsed.
You could always try that to save some precious time.
Alas, retirement does get to you in the end and causes mild to moderste insanity!
Since you are a KOL for the clear aligner company and get paid a substantial amount, I would love to know how I can get a gig like that??! And your case turned out so well…
I really enjoyed this! Thank you, and best wishes for a full recovery.
Ha, Ha that is truly funny Kevin. I am however still not happy with the end result, you started off anteriorly with incisors and finished up with molars and before treatment my moustache was subtly visible and now it is too prominent. I want my money back !
Hope you are feeling better get well soon.
Unfortunately orthodontics has moved away from meticulous case presentations to merely opinions.
Great representation of current scenario where brain washing plays a major role rather than Brian storming in shaping (trapping) next gen Orthodontists.
So you forgot to mention a PS generally written on such posts,
If you want learn more about such treatment mechanics we have special course starting from xxxx date and time, if you can’t make it offline we have an option of Blended mode. There would be special discount for members of xyz group.
Probably in near future Orthodontists would be DigOrthodontists and would forget the skill of their hands and brain.
Here is an open bite case I treated with Clear Aligners and TAD’s. It is posted in Qlark.com in my personal space. If you don’t have a login to view it, I am more than happy to just post all records here on one of your pages. All x rays included (actually cone beam). Clear aligners are a tool, just like braces are a tool. If used properly, nice clinical results can be accomplished. Just like any system, some doctors are better than others at utilizing it and some doctors just refuse to ever give it a try, and that is fine. Some doctors work very hard to improve at it, others give up with one hard case.
I do have to say, the public is asking for clear aligners at a higher and higher rate. As ‘specialists’, we need to figure out how to use the technology of clear aligners and deliver a sound, excellent result for these patients. In my opinion, it can be done, but there is a definite learning curve to accomplish this. I’ve made all the mistakes along the way unfortunately (and am always happy to share those mistakes when I present as a snake oil KOL so hopefully others don’t make the same mistakes I have). In fact, most of my lectures show as much ‘crap’ as gold for that very reason. Well, I do show then a followup that is a better case because of learning from that previous mistake. That’s how I personally learn, from challenges and mistakes, and I figure most others learn well that way too.
Please use the link provided here. This case was an eye opener to me as a previous clear aligner doubter.
https://qlark.com/cases/C13861
And no, your humor wasn’t lost on me. It was actually clever and funny. It was too bad the humor wasn’t the end of the post, but name mean spirited comments followed. It’s interesting. We had a conversation with our kids this past weekend. There was an unfortunate event in our community and our youngest who are in high school just didn’t understand why it was so hard for people to just be civil to one another. I’ve often used this blog to illustrate the negativity in not just our profession, but in human nature. It’s nice that there continues to be no lack of material to use as examples from this site. As I’ve often said, your work could and should stand on its own merits, but for some reason, you feel the need to use negativity towards others as your main platform. I just don’t get that. I really don’t. Maybe I was just raised differently.
I hope you’re feeling better and fully recovered from the virus.
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
Thanks for your comments. I tried to look at the case report on Qlark, but it is not available outside of the USA and Canada. From what I know about this platform, I imagine that this is a well-documented and analysed case report. There is nothing wrong with this. My post was about poorly prepared case reports of incomplete cases with all sorts of claims on Facebook. I am glad that you liked the humour. I publish nearly all the comments that people make on my posts, and I guess that it was these that you objected to. I am not sure about your comments on negativity. If you regard criticism of some publications and the antics of some KOLS as negativity, it is a shame, but the contributors to my blog are not going to change, because we need to challenge the lies etc. and highlight good evidence based research.
There you go again…It was just a matter of time before one of the easily aggrieved KOLs chimed in with the appropriate mix of gravitas and somber affront. What exactly was so “Negative”? Questioning the nonsensical claims made by several? Should devout approbation be the only appropriate response to the appallingly poor results put out by so many of these so-called experts?
It is definitely not uncivil to ask for evidence, and those who take umbrage at that have clearly shown that they lack the proof. It is time to put the plaster on the table, but more importantly, provide the data to support the claims and/or refute the existing literature. Until then, these protestations are simply symptomatic of an untenable position.
I think this is like Kundera, Unbearable lightness of being a millennium digital Orthodontists..
Amazing proof that expansion fixes everything. Not only were you able to circumvent the bounds of the alveolus, but the buccal mucosa as well!