Get It Straight

Back in the day kids would normally get braces just once. When they lost all of their baby teeth, then the orthodontist would place the braces on the kid.

By the time they got into high school, the braces came off. That was the operating procedure in the olden days.

Today, the concept is to place the child in braces twice. The approach is 2 fold.

Step 1. Use the child’s growth to help develop the jaw and skeleton to create more space for the incoming adult teeth.

Step 2. straighten and align the teeth so they could look beautiful and function nicely.

Many of my friends will come to me and say, “Hey, my orthodontist is recommending my kid get braces twice. I think this is a scam and they want to charge me twice.”

The simple answer is, there are 2 options of getting a child’s teeth to fit properly inside their mouth.

Option 1, use the child’s growth to our favor. Use braces and appliances that place pressure on the child’s jaw bones. This light but constant pressure helps stimulate the bone to grow. This growth will help create the room needed to allow the adult teeth to erupt with the proper room needed.

Option 2, is to wait and allow all the teeth to come in first. If we don’t have the space needed, then extract some teeth to make the room necessary to align the teeth.

When I was a kid, the second option was the standard option that most orthodontists took. Everyone would get their 4 premolars extracted and then the braces would be placed.

Now the treatment is more conservative and the goal is to avoid extracting teeth. This is why the trend to placing braces twice is a growing technique for orthodontia.

I hope this helps those of you who have children and discussing the need for braces.

If you are in need of a family dentist or help finding an orthodontist, please visit us at mydente.com or call 773-292-1911 today!

Floss Like a Madman!

Emilio “Answer Man” Couret