When teeth are misaligned or don’t bite properly, the face suffers. Overbites, also called malocclusion, can cause problems not just with eating, proper digestion, and oral health, but also with the aesthetics of one’s face.
Oral health experts at Montano & Cardall Orthodontic Specialists maintain that an orthodontist is the best person to determine if you need some help in fixing the teeth and, in some instances, the jawbone.
Candidates for Orthodontics
There are some conditions where orthodontics can greatly help, which includes overbites, underbites, crossbites, open bites, misplaced midline, spacing, and crowding. An overbite occurs when the upper teeth extend too far forward and stick out over the lower teeth.
Underbites are when the lower teeth are too far forward of the upper teeth. The upper teeth are supposed to bite down a little ahead of the lower teeth, and sometimes this does not happen. This is called a crossbite.
When closed, teeth do not have any space between the upper teeth and lower teeth, especially for the front or side teeth. When there are spaces between these teeth when biting, it’s called the open bite. Sometimes there is a misplaced midline, where the center of the upper front teeth is not in alignment with the central of the lower front teeth. Diastema, or gaps between teeth, can also be fixed by orthodontics.
Rarely, some people are born with extra teeth or those who have a small jaw. This causes crowding and you can fix this with orthodontics.
Orthodontic Appliances
You can use fixed and removable orthodontic appliances to fix the above conditions. Fixed orthodontic appliances include braces and fixed space maintainers. Removable space maintainers are an alternative to fixed space maintainers. There are also special fixed maintainers to control thumb sucking.
Removal orthodontic appliances include aligners, headgear, lip and cheek bumpers, palatal expander and retainers. Sometimes splints or jaw repositioning appliances are also used.
To fix malocclusion and other teeth alignment problems, dentists use various orthodontic appliances to help the patient. These are worn on the teeth and help to fix teeth alignment problems.
