Orthodontic Treatment: Benefits, the Most Common Orthodontic Irregularities, Their Causes, and Treatment

Everybody wants to have a beautiful ultra-white smile, shining with the gorgeous and straight teeth. However, not every one of us has been so generously endowed by Mother Nature. But nowadays you can easily fix this mishap. If you feel dissatisfied with the way your teeth look like, or experience more serious functional dental problems, orthodontic treatment is called to help you.

What is Orthodontic Treatment?

A special branch of dentistry called orthodontics deals with the orthodontic treatment aimed at the diagnosis, correction, and prevention of dental and facial irregularities, as well as jaw muscles and joints functioning disorders. Your orthodontist can change your teeth positioning with the help of braces, teeth gap expanders, dental retainers, or other orthodontic appliances, which are going to make your smile look just perfect.

Why is Orthodontic Treatment so Beneficial for Me?

The orthodontic treatment is not just a matter of creating a patient's beautiful appearance. Crowed, misaligned, or crooked teeth make you more prone to such oral cavity diseases as tooth decay and gum disease. Apart from that, your teeth positioning has a functional aspect as it influences your ability to talk and chew well enough thus, causing the digestion problems. It also influences the quality of your oral cavity hygiene, not allowing you to brush and floss your teeth properly. Poor orthodontic health also has the psychological background, as the physical imperfectness associated with it might lead to low self-esteem and even severe depressions.

What are the Most Common Orthodontic Irregularities?

Your orthodontist can successfully treat such orthodontic problems as misaligned, missing or extra, crooked or crowded teeth. He can also handle various bad bite problems, which include an open bite (the orthodontic condition associated with the backside teeth match up and the front teeth mismatch), an overbite (in this case the upper jaw is much larger, than the lower one), and an underbite (an opposite to an overbite orthodontic problem). Apart from that, orthodontists have to deal with a misaligned jaw position, the jaw joint disorders, and various facial irregularities.

Every orthodontic case is individual and specific, but the most frequent orthodontic problems treated are an inadequate alignment for children and crowded or crooked teeth for the adult patients.

What are the Main Causes of Orthodontic Irregularities?

Orthodontic irregularities might be the result of accidents and traumas, and premature loss of milk teeth. They are also associated with certain habitual behaviors, such as finger and / or thumb sucking, prolonged baby's dummy use, or tongue-thrusting. Orthodontic irregularities also might be caused by genetics.

Each one of the above-mentioned cause is associated with certain orthodontic irregularity. For instance, accidents and traumas lead to the teeth being fractured or knocked down, which cause the teeth loss or improper teeth line-up in the jaw.

Premature loss of milk teeth causes molars to erupt improperly, resulting in crowded or partially erupted teeth problem. The teeth located near by the lost baby tooth move into the vacant space and prevent the molar from eruption.

Finger and / or thumb sucking, tongue-thrusting, and prolonged baby's dummy use cause the overbite orthodontic problem. Underbite cases are usually caused by genetics or crowded teeth disorders.

What Procedures does Orthodontic Treatment Involve?

The orthodontic treatment process is usually subdivided into two stages: the active and the retention phase.

The active stage involves the use of widely popular braces or other dental appliances, called to correct the teeth alignment and bad bite problems. Braces are the most popular orthodontic treatment appliance, the design of which keeps constantly improving. The traditional metal appliance is the lot of your grandparents. They rapidly got replaced by the invisible Lingual braces and their movable (also unnoticeable for others) alternative - the movable Invisalign braces. The latest model, often advised by your cosmetic dentist and orthodontist is Inman Aligners, which straighten or align your teeth in record short period of time (6-8 weeks), causing minimum discomfort. Unfortunately, this orthodontics appliance can help to move your front teeth only and are not suitable for crowded teeth and underbite orthodontic problems treatment.

The retention phase involves the use of retainers. This orthodontics appliance serves to hold your teeth in the new position, achieved by wearing your braces. This way the retainers ensure the long-term results, achieved at the active stage of the orthodontic treatment.