subject: Braces for Your Teeth [print this page] What You Need to Know About Braces for Your Teeth
Not all people have perfect tooth alignment. Misalignments are known as malocclusions and are dealt with by orthodontists in a variet of ways including braces. Things like under bites, overbites, cross bites, open bites and just crooked teeth fit into this category. Many people assume that braces are all about dental wellbeing, and while that's generally the case, they are increasingly being used for cosmetic applications, people trying to get those perfectly straight teeth.
Brace Components
Brackets: These are commonly made out of some type of metal or ceramic material. A single bracket is attached to the front side of each tooth in the mouth.
Bonding: To keep the brackets attached to each tooth, a type of glue is generally used. Occassionally however, the bracket is held in place with a band around the tooth.
Arch Wire: Arch wires are tiny metal wires attached to each bracket and which run across to the adjacent bracket. These also help to keep the teeth in place by putting pressure on the teeth themselves.
Ligature Elastic: Ligature elastics (also called "o-rings") are small coloured elastics that connect the arch wires to the brackets on the teeth. The elastics are swapped and adjusted on each visit to the orthodontist to keep pressure on the teeth. However there are some kinds of braces that do not need elastic ligatures, these are called "self ligating braces".
Kinds of Braces
There have been many alterations to brace technology over the years with all the first braces being stainless steel and very basic. There are now many different types of braces used in many different situations.
What we might refer to as traditional braces were stainless steel but are not made mostly of a nickel titanium compound. They could be the normal elastic-using braces or the more modern self ligating types of braces. This second type of brace can actually decrease te friction in the mouth and helps a lot of people.
Some braces use colors and transparent parts to reduce visibility; these are sometimes referred to as clear braces. There are however certain types of mouthpieces used to straighten teeh that are not technically braces, though they may be referred to as such.
Gold Plate Braces: These are used for two very distinctive reasons. One may be due to an allergy to nickel which is a component part of stainless steel and the other is cosmetic, when the individual prefers the look of gold to the look of silver.
A brace that is placed behind the teeth and nearly impossible to see is called a lingual brace, and is more expensive and more difficult for the orthodontist to adjust than normal braces. Another problem that arises is that they interfere with the movement of the tonque and can hinder clear speech as a result.
Tooth position is shaped by pressure from other teeth and from the biting and tongue action patterns of the individual. Braces use the idea of applied force on the teeth to move them in the right directions. The average braces treatment moves a tooth one millimeter per month and it is mostly due to the pressure applied by the arch wires that gets the job done. The amount of change that needs to take place, and the responsiveness of an individual's teeth can vary treatment time from a few months to years. If you have crooked teeth, track down a good orthodontist knowing they have various ways to deal with your dental challenges.
Braces for Your Teeth
By: Ed Grose
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