What to expect for braces and aligners?
Braces
- Hygiene (It is a bit more difficult to maintain hygiene with braces as it requires special tools to clean underneath the wires and it takes more effort with cleaning)
- Ulcers & Mouth Sores (For braces, at the start but less with time, but with poor hygiene it will take a year or two longer to complete treatment)
- Decalcification (Poor hygiene when wearing braces)
- Avoid Hard or Sticky food (Brackets breaking)
Aligners
- Remove before eating
- No restriction to what you can eat
To Conclude:
The most common way of aligning teeth for teenagers would be metal braces. I would say the majority of my patients when they come in will ask for braces.
“You know, for braces, it's so fun, there are so many colours to choose from” so they do find that it is so fun to put on braces. Every time they come in they will be thinking about what colour to do next so they are quite happy doing braces.
We can do growth modification in combination with the braces treatment. So we can use appliances like the headgear or maybe some spring appliances or in younger patients where the adult teeth are not fully grown yet, we might do the first phase of treatment.
In more severe cases, we might use a removable appliance such as what we call a twin block appliance. So, with all these growth modifications we can see that we can get the face to change naturally by encouraging the growth of the jaw in the correct direction.
In order for these growth modifications to work, you do need to wear it for more than half a day. So, with the busy schedules, how are these kids going to be able to cope with these appliances?
That's why there are other alternatives nowadays, patients are always looking for something that is more aesthetic, so that is the reason why if we look at the market, there are many alternatives such as ceramic braces or braces made of a material that is tooth coloured or transparent.
There are even wires that are coated so that it does not look as obvious to the human eye. There are also lingual braces, which are basically stuck at the back of the teeth, but it is not the most comfortable or easiest to manage because you can't really see the braces. Cleaning it is very important or there might be a buildup of plaque.
Also, it tends to scratch the tongue a little bit more and it has a little bit of effect on the speech. There are also the aligners, there are many brands in the market, and the most common you have probably heard of is Invisalign, there are also other brands like Zenyum all these brands.
They tend to be a little different due to the material and the kinds of cases it is able to handle with relation to the materials.
Basically, If you look at it, you can look at it in two different groups: braces and aligners. For my preference in terms of aligners, I normally like to work with Invisalign simply because it has the longest track record and has been in the market since 1997, there is also a lot of money invested in the
Research and development and the materials have changed so much over the years and the attachment to treat cases that can be treated effectively with Invisalign nowadays. I can even do cases which require extraction, jaw surgery with the aligners, this Invisalign as compared to other aligners.
If you have a minor case, you may consider other aligners as well. Different aligners have different kinds of suitability in terms of your case.
For braces, the gold standard will be your metal braces but if you are looking for something more aesthetic, you can always go for ceramic braces things like that.
Invisalign is my choice when it comes to aligners, especially in teenagers. This is because it also has some additional features that are good for teenagers.
As I've mentioned above about jaw modification, Invisalign is pretty smart because they actually have this particular design which is a mandibular advancement, for patients who have jaw discrepancies, so that allows the lower jaw to actually grow more using just one appliance.
How that works is that it has precision wings attached to the appliance itself, so when you are wearing these aligners, it makes patients posture their jaw forward, which is how other jaw appliances work or even space, it postures your jaw in a forward position for a longer period of time and it actually guides the lower jaw to grow in the right position.
So, Invisalign allowed you to straighten your teeth and correct the jaw at the same time.
