Orthodontics is a dentistry branch correcting teeth and jaws that happened to find a place in wrong locations. Crooked teeth or any other those teeth that are not adjusted properly are difficult to clean and are always at a higher risk of shedding early due to contaminant and tooth decay. It leads to additional stress on the chewing muscles that result in headaches, neck, back or shoulder pain and often TMJ syndrome too.
History of Orthodontics
Albeit, teeth straightening and alignment has been prevalent since early times, orthodontics (also known as braces) specifically in medical science was not in existence until 1880s.
Who Require Braces?
It is recommended that children must be consulted at the age of 7. It may appear to be pretty early to visit the dentist for orthodontic reasons, this visit will enable the orthodontist to take precautionary measures to correct the situation, which may not require braces in the future. Albeit, adults can also consult at any age as it’s always better to correct your teeth at any age for better and enhanced personality.
The initial visit to the dentist would be simply an oral assessment of the patient’s teeth and facial appearance. If the situation warrants the orthodontist may seek more comprehensive details, or if the patient asks to start treatment, the process of diagnosis can be initiated. The diagnostic apparatus may consist of x-rays, photographs of the patient’s face and teeth, and models of the patient’s teeth, which are of the essence for the orthodontist to understand and design a treatment strategy for the patient.
Why Orthodontic Braces Are Required?
Braces are facilitated to fix the teeth in desired and expected place and align them to bite in harmony. Malocclusion is the wrong alignment of dental structure, which may be due to packed skeletal friction of the face between the lower and the upper layers, having initial molars as a meeting point. More often than not, misalignment of teeth mostly appears in three different classifications:
Class I – The 1st class is accepted as the best harmony between the layers of lower and upper teeth line. Class I bite is the situation where spacing or hording is witnessed.
Class II – Most commonly hailed as “over bite.” In this situation the lower initial molar is placed posterior, and the upper jaw appears to be projected forward. This type of bite is also coupled with two sub classes and in either of the sub classes the molar harmony is identical.
Class III – In this class, the patient’s first molar of the lower jaw is placed anterior, nearer to the front part of the mouth. In this condition the lower jaw is projected forward, which is better known as an “under bite.”
In all these classes the patients may not feel any trouble in biting and eating but they might be suffering from different levels of spacing and crowding, which is yet another factor linked with a disharmony bite.
Crowding
In crowding, the teeth either overlap or rotate and often in some case grow in unusual place in the mouth. Crowding can often be witnessed due to the small dental arch in adult teeth, or under the circumstances when the adult teeth become much larger than proportionate. The patient may find it tough to brush or clean the teeth properly in case of crowding, which may result in tooth decay due to unhygienic conditions.
Spacing
Ostensibly, various degrees of spacing can also be found due to smaller jaw line or teeth size. The most common type is the diastima, in which a gap is found between upper two front teeth, which is also hailed as centrals.
What Orthodontics Offers
It is not only straight teeth and correct bite that orthodontics treatment has to give, there is much more that this treatment has in store to offer including:
- Speech Impediments
- TMJ or Jaw Pain
- Trouble in Eating or Grinding
- Sleep Apnea Due to Mouth Breathing or Snoring
- Clenching or Grinding of Teeth
- Gum Disorders along with Tooth Decay
Patients witnessing any one of the said signs of tooth complication should visit their orthodontist to diagnose the cause. Self confidence is also dependent on orthodontic treatment, which is directly associated with your dental structure and facial shape. There are several treatment procedures available to correct the appearance of your pearly smile in this medical branch.
Just search out the orthodontic specialist in your locality to correct your smile and facial structure. Healthy teeth with right dental structure can improve your facial appearance and add to the self esteem, which is the result of orthodontics treatment that corrects your teeth facilitating braces. So, be alert and properly assess your orthodontics needs by visiting your dentist to understand, if you are in need of orthodontic braces for flashing a healthy and confident pearly smile all over!
