Everything You Need to Know About Orthodontics at Dulac Dental of Springfield
Hi, this is Dr. Jason Dulac. I own and operate Dulac Dental of Springfield in Springfield, Virginia. Today I wanted to talk to you a little bit about orthodontics or moving and aligning teeth. The alignment of the teeth helps a lot later in life with cleaning the teeth, making them less prone to cavities and gum disease.
What are the health benefits of having orthodontic treatment?
In addition to the cosmetic and functional benefits, there are some health benefits as well. If the jaws aren't properly aligned, that can lead to airway obstruction issues, snoring, and sleep apnea later in life.
Most people think about the cosmetic benefits of orthodontic treatment, but there are definitely some functional benefits in the jaw growth and development years. We usually start to assess that around 6 to 8 years old. I look at that for every child that I see. Around 12 to 13, when all the adult teeth have erupted and all the baby teeth are out, but you're still growing, that's a great time to do orthodontic therapy as well.
Most people think about orthodontic therapy as being done in young teens. That's because all the teeth are out usually by 12 or 13, but the jaw is still growing, and you still have some room to grow and develop the jaw as you're moving the teeth. If there are severe jaw malalignment issues, like the lower jaw is too forward or too far back, or the upper and lower jaws are too small and need to be expanded, that's really best done around 6 to 8 years old, depending on the child. That's called functional orthodontic therapy. I do that in my office.
There are a number of appliances and expanders we use. Headgear is kind of a thing of the past. We have some different appliances that function in lieu of headgear. We don't typically use headgear anymore, but those are functional appliances to expand and develop the jaws into proper alignment so that when you go to align the teeth with braces or clear aligners, Invisalign, whatever you want to use, the jaw is the proper shape and size.
We try not to take out teeth anymore. Extracting teeth leads to smaller jaws, which leads to increased issues with snoring and sleep apnea later in life. I'm kind of a non-extraction orthodontic guy. You really want to promote and develop the jaws appropriately so that you don't have to take out teeth. I'm not saying that we should never take out teeth. There are occasions when we do it. But this old school approach of going in at 12 or 13, taking out four teeth, and making it quick and easy to align the teeth is not the way you want to go. It's caused a lot of problems with snoring and sleep apnea later in life.
Underdeveloped jaws, the jaw and face look small and undersized, unhealthy. If you want to look at a good celebrity example of this, look at Megan Markle and her husband. Megan has this big beautiful smile, and her husband has this narrow arch. That is from taking out teeth and then shrinking the jaw down. What you want to do is properly develop the jaw so that the teeth can be straight, and you get that nice, like Julia Roberts smile.
Advancements in Orthodontic Therapy
There have been a lot of advancements in orthodontic therapy. Most people are familiar with Clear Aligners or Invisalign; there are tons of brands now. Let's talk about some wire orthodontic stuff for a minute, that's come a long way since I had it when I was younger. The wire now is what we call a bioactive wire. From the back, there's more force; the middle of the wire has medium force, and the front has light force. You only need light force to move the front teeth and heavier forces to move the back teeth. When you put it in the mouth, the temperature of the body activates the wire into differential force mode. That's something really cool and new. I use all bioactive wires for all of my orthodontic treatment because they're more comfortable, help it go quicker, and lead to fewer wire changes, which means fewer visits.
It's really neat what we're doing now. I have a case going right now for a young woman who had braces when she was a kid. They tried to move it with clear aligners, and we did the bioactive wires; she's been in treatment for like 2 months, and her teeth are already where they need to be. She was super excited. I was pleased that things went so quickly and smoothly. Those are some of the advances that this new wire allows us to do.
What are the purposes and uses of brackets and ties with braces?
Now, when everyone thinks of brackets, they think about the little ties that go around the bracket, the little latex ties that go around the bracket, the little color ring. Most kids ask, "What colors do you have?" and I can get you any color you want, but we don't need the color wires anymore. We have ceramic brackets if you want something more cosmetic. We have the traditional brackets. Now, because there aren't hooks coming out of the brackets to put this tie around, the bracket is smaller, and the bracket has a little tube down the middle for the wire to slide. The tube slides more quickly in the wire, allowing the treatment to be more comfortable and quicker, and you don't have to worry about the ties. I do still have kids who want ties put on, I just put them on over it, but you don't need those, and they do slow down the case. We have these windowed brackets where this slot goes up and down. The wire goes in the slot, I close the slot, and the tooth slides easily along the wire. It reduces the treatment time, increases the options of what we can do, decreases the wire change in treatment visits, and it's more comfortable. Some really neat stuff has come along with wires in traditional orthodontic therapy that allows us to do a lot more than we were able to do in the past.
Why does jaw Growth and development matter for orthodontic treatments?
In my office, I'm always looking and evaluating jaw growth and development at any age, but the ideal time to do it would be around 6 to 8 years old for most kids. If there's a jaw discrepancy, then in the teen years, for aligning the teeth. That's because we've caught the growth curve.
That being said, the majority of patients in my office who do orthodontics are actually in their 50s and 60s. They've already taken care of the kids. The kids are out of school, out of the house. They have some money to spend on themselves and want to focus on themselves for the first time in a while. All of the things I just went over are still options for adult orthodontic therapy. I still develop the jaw, and I still use clear aligners or wires, depending on what the person wants, needs, or desires. Most of my adults go with clear aligners. Clear aligners are great for teens now, too. It's kind of the new cool thing to get clear aligners. As long as the jaw is developed properly, wires or clear aligners are great. It's when the jaw isn't properly developed that you try and push the aligners or wires to do more than they're supposed to do that you get these bad outcomes or compromised outcomes.
First, you want to get the jaw where it should be. Then, you want to straighten the teeth. A lot of people might consider orthodontics to be cosmetic. There are some health benefits, but when you're talking about jaw growth and alignment, I really don't consider that to be cosmetic. It's functional.
All of my patients who have really bad dental problems in life have jaw alignment issues, overcrowding of teeth; they get harder to clean, food gets packed in there, they get cavities, they can't bite right, their jaw is all worn down, their teeth are all worn down. By the time you get to that stage, trying to fix it is very expensive, like $40,000 to $60,000.
Orthodontic therapy, although some people don't have adult ortho coverage or, you know, it's around $5,000 and maybe only half covered, done early in life, can save 10 times that amount of money later in life. It's something that I discuss and go over the treatment options with all my patients.
Orthodontic Treatments at Dulac Dental of Springfield
If you have questions about orthodontics, straight teeth, jaw growth, jaw development, or jaw alignment, please give us a call. Dulac Dental of Springfield, Springfield, Virginia, (703) 451-4500, or schedule below! Our staff would love to talk with you.