In this testimonial, a female actress recounts her orthodontic challenges that began around age 13 when a displaced canine (a "shark tooth") caused aesthetic and self‑esteem issues. Early attempts—including a pulled baby tooth, a retainer, and costly but ineffective treatments—failed to resolve the problem. After searching for a specialist, she met Dr. Hang, who offered two options: immediate braces or a six‑month sagittal appliance followed by brief braces. Because she was filming, she chose the sagittal appliance, a hidden device that expands the arch by being turned with a key every few days. After six months the appliance created enough space for the canine to erupt, after which she wore braces for another six months. She praises Dr. Hang’s philosophy of preserving facial structure, criticizing extraction‑heavy orthodontics that can alter jaw position and facial aesthetics. She emphasizes the critical role of patient compliance with the appliance, noting that neglect would halt progress. The testimonial also highlights the welcoming, child‑friendly atmosphere of Dr. Hang’s office. She concludes with advice for others to endure the discomfort of proper orthodontic protocols to avoid long‑term complications.
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When I turned probably about 13, and, you know, times that are really important how you look when you first, you know, your teenage years, my teeth started to kind of— they weren't really looking right, and I never really had a problem with my teeth before, so It was a little frustrating. And as kind of time went on, I didn't have enough room in my mouth, and so I had what we all called a shark tooth. And it was my eye tooth, my fang, was on top of my other teeth. And especially when you're younger, you know, you want to look like everyone else, you want to look good, it's really important. And so what ended up happening was I would never smile in any of the pictures. I always looked upset. I would never show my teeth. All of my other friends had never had braces before, had perfect teeth, you know, just amazing luck. And I had this shark tooth that I— it was just horrible. I would never smile, and when I did, it just looked horrible, and it had a really big effect on me. It's kind of like, not your self-esteem, but it just takes a toll on you as how you feel about yourself. Because, you know, if you don't feel like you look good on the outside, then you don't feel good on the inside. So, you know, not even just in pictures, just my mood would change. All my friends would always be happy, and when you don't feel like you look good or you don't feel like you look up to par, you look different than everybody else, it just changes how you feel completely. And I had a tooth pulled. It was a baby tooth, it wasn't an adult tooth, but I had a tooth pulled. I wore a retainer that didn't do anything for me. Luckily nothing happened that ruined my teeth, but a lot of money went into no change at all. So I did talk to some nothing really happened, and my mom said, well, you know, let's just wait until we find somebody who really knows what they're doing. And a problem hadn't developed until I was older anyway, so then we met Dr. Hang and it was, it was perfect. Well, he gave me 2 options. He said I could get braces right away and just have braces until my teeth would straighten out, but because I also act and I'm in the entertainment industry, I didn't want to get braces right away because I was at the time filming a project. So we were trying to work around how I could keep my smile somewhat, you know, fix it a little bit and not have braces. So I had a sagittal for 6 months, and it was basically like a retainer, but you wouldn't see any wires across the front. So it would hook around the back, and what it would do is you would crank it, I think every 2 or 3 days, or maybe it was a week, you would crank it with this little key he would give, and it would slowly start to push my teeth apart and make room for my eye tooth to come down. So I wore the sagittal for about 6 months, and I wore it until it could open up as much space as possible. And then once the sagittal couldn't do anything else and I needed to have braces, I got braces, and I only had braces for 6 months. A lot of orthodontists, they pull teeth out because they can't find any other solution, and they just get rid of them if they're in the way. But what ends up happening is it changes the structure of your jaw and A lot of features in your face start to change. I think one he said that happens a lot is the jaw starts to recline, I think, and it pushes back into your face, and it kind of has this odd appeal and this odd kind of facial structure that you're normally not supposed to have. And as he started pointing these things out, I would notice this in a lot of my friends. I was like, oh wow, he's right, that doesn't look— that doesn't look normal. So when he explained how, you know, your braces have to be in accordance with the facial structure and your bones, it really made sense. And I was starting to notice, wow, he's really right, it makes a really big difference. Thank God, you know, I had Dr. Hang, so I never experienced it. But a lot of my friends that are, you know, they model and do things like that, when they got braces and they thought, oh, you know, their teeth are going to look so nice now, and a lot of things just aren't working out as they're getting older and their bones are moving and it's not, it's not working out and they're coming into a lot of problems. And not even, you know, with the business, it's just, it's not healthy for a lot of them. The first doctor that I went to who told me about Dr. Hang, he only works on adult patients. So he works on the people that saw regular orthodontists in their youth. And he would tell me things how people would come in and, you know, their entire lower teeth would just be just a mess. And just, I had a friend of mine who was older, and she was having the same problems. And her whole entire lower jaw had to be reconstructed because all of her teeth were just in the wrong place and in horrible condition. And I was her friend, so I saw firsthand how much it affected her. She never smiled. Her teeth were brown. They were chipped. They were broken. It was horrible. And she just had a regular orthodontist like most people get, and it was costing her— How much? $30,000 for only her lower teeth, to get her lower teeth fixed. Every single individual tooth had to be remodeled. It was, it was just horrible, and that was just one thing. Well, personally, when I had the sagittal, a really big important thing was that I had to keep it in and I had to wear it or else, you know, my teeth wouldn't move. So I would say that for somebody who is considering, you know, Dr. Hang or a doctor that takes this approach, which I don't know many who do, but it's really important that they're active and that they do what he says because if you don't, you know, if you have a sagittal or whatever it is that you have, if you don't wear it or if you don't do it, your teeth aren't going to improve. And it's kind of hard to understand that because you're young, you don't want to wear it, it's uncomfortable, it's thick, you have a lisp, whatever the reason may be. I know I didn't want to at first, but it's really important that you do because in the long run You won't have problems that your friends will. And it's just— I know that a lot of kids, they don't want to because it may not feel right or doesn't look good, but when they're older, they're really going to be happy that they did it. They won't run into those problems that pretty much everyone else will because they didn't have somebody who knew what to do and how to work with their face. So I think my advice would be, even though it's gonna be difficult and you won't want to, It's really important, and if you have to, you know, really pain yourself to do it, you really should. Dr. Hang's office, it was always, you know, something really— it was fun, everyone was nice. You'd walk in there and everyone was just always happy, very welcoming, and there was never a moment where, you know, you got scared. I know a lot of kids are afraid of the orthodontist or afraid of the dentist. It's never like that. I mean, obviously I'm older, I don't get afraid of the dentist, but even for younger kids, you know, they have like a little play area in the front where you sit down in the waiting room, and it's— everyone there is just so nice. It's unbelievable. You always feel like you're welcome. They do a great job. Thank you.
