Even when you have stunning facial features and gorgeous proportions, having crooked, overcrowded, or misaligned teeth can cast a dark shadow on your otherwise glowing looks. At the same time, jaw and teeth alignment issues can also lead to various health problems. This can be detrimental to your confidence and wellbeing, while also affecting how you behave around other people.
With orthodontics, you can resolve common aesthetic and functional problems that challenge your health. To help you learn more about improving your smile and comfort, here’s a quick guide to this popular dentistry practice.
What is Orthodontics?
Orthodontics is a special branch of dentistry that focuses on resolving irregularities in the jaw and teeth. This helps you treat issues that affect your smile, and address problems that take a toll on your wellbeing. While getting cosmetic dentistry smile makeovers only solves aesthetic concerns, turning to orthodontics can treat both the appearance and function of your teeth, as well as irregularities in your jaw structure.
Which Concerns Does Orthodontics Address?
From replacing missing teeth with custom abutment implants to realigning crooked teeth for a perfect smile, orthodontics delivers a slew of treatments for different age groups. These treatments can resolve concerns including but not limited to the following problems.
- Misaligned teeth
- Crooked teeth
- Overcrowded teeth
- Gapped teeth
- Overbite
- Underbite
- Jaw pain
- Temporomandibular joints (TMJs) disorders
If you have an issue that can be treated by orthodontics, you might get it covered by your dental insurance. For this purpose, you need to consult with an orthodontist as well as your insurance provider to figure out the best path forward for you.
What Are Some Popular Orthodontics Treatments?
While orthodontics offers a variety of treatments, it does have some practices that are more popular than others. The following list sheds a light on them.
Metal Braces
Metal braces are fixed to your teeth and connected with a metal wire, which helps move your teeth’s position to deliver a better and perfectly-aligned smile. Since you have to continuously wear braces, usually for a couple of years, you can take some inspiration from positive quotes for kids and adults to wear them with confidence.
Ceramic Braces
Where metal braces are instantly visible to others whenever you smile, ceramic braces have a more concealed look to them due to matching the color of natural tooth enamel. But in some cases, it may be necessary for you to wear metal braces instead in order to properly fix your smile.
Clear Aligners
In some situations, you may not need any type of braces. Instead, you could wear clear aligners for at least 20 hours a day to fix your teeth alignment issues. Clear aligners might be a bit on the expensive side, which is why you may need to use a budgeting service to save up for them.
Retainers
When you fix your teeth alignment issues with braces or aligners, you have to wear retainers for every night afterwards. You need to get these retainers especially made from your dentist. Similar to learning cleaning tips for dental implants, you also need to remember how to keep your retainers clean.
Palate Expanders
For children, if their upper jaw’s structure makes their teeth become overcrowded or causes issues like underbite, they may need to wear a palate expander that is fixed on the upper jaw. This can prevent the need to wear braces for a longer period later in life.
Elastics
Sometimes, your teeth might need extra pressure along with braces to fix their alignment. This is where elastics come into the picture. These rubber bands are fixed from one brace hook to the other to create prolonged pressure. You need to wear them daily and replace them yourself. If you follow daily rituals like using a journaling app, you may adopt this habit easily.
Headgear
In some cases, you may need to wear headgear to fix the issues of your jaw and teeth alignment. While this is not a common practice anymore, it is still needed for some dental patients. You can discuss your concerns with your orthodontist to explore all your treatment options.
After learning how orthodontics works, you can confidently reach out to an orthodontist. This can help you find relief from a variety of dental concerns, while also leading you to the smile you deserve.