Is there a right age to get braces?
Brace treatment can essentially be done at any age as soon as you have permanent teeth.
Innovative orthodontic solutions now mean that the majority of people regardless of age can have teeth straightening treatments. These include inconspicuous braces and clear braces.
Brace treatment involves components like a small bracket that is fixed to each tooth. These brackets support a wire which then moves your teeth.
For adults, there are now numerous treatment options that are inconspicuous and tooth coloured.
The main governing factor before starting treatment is to have a good sound healthy foundation. For this reason, a careful and considered dental examination is required to establish healthy gums, teeth, jaws and jaw joints. We can carry out our dental assessment at our Hertford practice.
Thereafter, the dentist will select the most compatible treatment choices for you. There are now so many different types of brace treatments available that it is imperative to choose the one that is most suited to your mouth and lifestyle.
This helps the treatment to be most impactful on your teeth and the resulting alignment to last as long as possible.
The best age to consider straightening of teeth is when young (early teenager) and most of the adult permanent teeth have come through. This is because we are able to move teeth into the correct position whilst the developmental growth is happening. Straighten your teeth with us today.
When the child stops growing, then the teeth will be more stable and tend to remain in this new position – often without the need for a permanent retainer. The teeth “solidify” in the jawbone.
The main difference in orthodontic treatments between adults and teenagers are:
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Adult treatment is primarily aimed at cosmetic improvement of the front teeth only.
It doesn’t involve complex planning to re-establish your bite patterns and back molar teeth.
Children’s orthodontic treatment, on the other hand, focuses on the realignment of all the teeth to establish a good bite overall. Movement of the multi-rooted molar back teeth requires a considerable length of time even in children. This is why many teenagers have orthodontic treatment for a couple of years.
Most adults are simply interested in the aesthetics of the smile. So in adults, we use simple tilting and rotating techniques on mostly single or bi-rooted teeth to only restore the cosmetic appearance of the teeth.
These techniques do not require as much bone changes as the traditional techniques. This does not require as much time and hence the advent of Short-Term Adult Orthodontic treatments.
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Adults will have to wear a permanent retainer for life.
A retainer is a wire that is bonded to the back of the front teeth to permanently hold the new teeth alignment in place. Sometimes a removable retainer is also advised depending on the patient susceptibility to relapse of treatment.
In young teenagers since the teeth are being moved at the same time as the developmental jaw growth, usually, they only need retainers until the growth stops in early adulthood.
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Simpler techniques are used in adults.
Orthodontists tend to use traditional methods in teenagers to secure teeth in a new position since these techniques are proven to give a better overall result in cosmetics, speech and chewing function.
In adults, however, we tend to now use techniques that are not as forceful and only on the front teeth that are part of the smile.
Back teeth are rarely altered, as major bite changes are often unnecessary. Thus adult braces treatments tend to be quicker since not as much bone changes are required.
We offer a free consultation at our London or Hertfordshire consulting rooms that enables us to understand your needs better. Contact us on 01992 552115 for more information on our brace treatments.