Hi, this is Dr. Chan with Crown Dentistry. We've been getting a lot of questions about orthodontics, so today I'll be answering those questions with the hope that we can go over what it is, how it works, and when we can use it.
What is orthodontics and how does it improve your dental alignment?
So orthodontics is the area of dentistry that's concerned with the alignment of your teeth and your jaws. A lot of people simply have teeth and jaws that are kind of out of whack, out of alignment, and orthodontics has a goal of trying to make that better for people.
What are the different types of orthodontic?
For the longest time, everybody associated orthodontics with braces, which is, as you might know, just the attachment of either metal or ceramic brackets to teeth and then having those brackets and the teeth connected by metal wires. We're really blessed now to live in an age where dental technology has improved and advanced, and now we're able to work with clear aligner trays. I'm sure you guys have all heard of Invisalign, ClearCorrect, and other companies that do that. At our office, we offer Invisalign, and now we're able to use these trays as well as just the technology that's available through the power of AI and the internet to also move teeth and align them and your jaws in a way that makes it better and healthier for you as a patient.
Is orthodontics for every age group or mainly just children?
Traditionally, at least in the past, a lot of times orthodontics were marketed mostly to kids, teens usually of school age, you know, mostly under 18. But nowadays, what we find, especially in our practice here at Crown Dentistry, is that a lot of our patients are adults. Maybe they're getting orthodontics for the first time, maybe they were wanting to do it again because they had orthodontics as a kid and their teeth have moved, or they didn't wear their retainers as well as they should have, and now they've found that they just want to get their teeth straight. They want to get them in a better position so that they can have a better bite, they can eat better, they can look better.
At what age should children receive their first orthodontic evaluation?
Usually, we tend to like looking at our patients who are children when they start getting maybe their first couple of adult teeth. So a lot of times around the age of six or seven, we'll start looking at it. I'm not necessarily saying that we're going to do anything at that point, but we definitely can start the ball rolling. If there are cases that we can treat here at the office, we'll do it. If I feel like it would be better to have an orthodontist take care of your children, we can refer them to any of the excellent specialists that we work with here in Sacramento.
How do orthodontic treatment options differ for teens versus adults?
Everything revolves around the number of adult teeth that a patient might have in their mouth. Sometimes, we mentioned in an earlier part of this video that we'll start looking at patients when they're around the ages of six and seven. They might have some adult teeth, but they're still going to have a majority of their baby teeth. As our patients grow, they become teenagers, the number of baby teeth starts to decrease because they'll fall out, they're replaced by adult teeth, your permanent teeth, and then their jaw starts to more closely resemble what it's going to look like when they're adults and for the rest of their lives. So what differentiates patients who are teens and patients who are adults is that patients who are teens may still have a few of their baby teeth, and that can potentially impact how their bite is going to come together, how their teeth are going to come together. Plenty of teens still have orthodontics done in order to get their teeth better aligned. You just have to take into account that some of those teeth may eventually fall out and be replaced by other teeth. When you're working on patients who are adults, largely those teeth that are in their mouth are the ones that are going to stay there for the rest of their lives, and so we can usually better plan and prepare how orthodontic treatment can best help them.
How does headgear work and when is it necessary?
Sometimes you'll see patients who are in orthodontics, they'll have an apparatus that straps around their head, and there are some straps that either go above or around their forehead, and then it's attached to brackets, wires, and or trays that are inside their mouths. A lot of times, these headgear are used in order to aid in moving the patient's teeth backward away from the front of their mouth and towards the back of their mouth. Patients can have any number of different misalignments in their bite and in their teeth. Sometimes people's teeth are too far forward, sometimes they're too far backwards, sometimes they're just crowded and kind of overlapping on top of each other, but the headgear is used when patients' teeth are too far forward and we're trying to make it more better aligned for the rest of their mouth.
How affordable is ortho and what cost factors are involved in orthodontic treatment?
Orthodontics can vary in price depending on the kind of insurance coverage you have. If you have insurance coverage, sometimes the cost of orthodontics can go as low as around $5,000, maybe slightly higher, maybe in the $5,300 range. If you don't have insurance, sometimes that can go a little bit higher, close to $6,000. It also depends on whether you decide to see a specialist versus a general dentist to get orthodontic treatment done. By and large, specialists will tend to charge a little bit more for their orthodontic treatment.
What should patients consider when choosing the best orthodontic provider?
I feel like the most important thing for any patient to consider when they're thinking about who to have to take care of their teeth, their jaws, their mouth, is if you trust them. If you trust their knowledge, you trust what they're saying, and you trust that they're listening to you and what your needs and wants are. I feel like as long as you can find a practitioner that can fulfill all of these points, then you're going to come out with a good result.
Thanks so much for listening to us today. I hope that this has answered some of your questions about orthodontics. If you have any more questions or if you just want to chat about how to better make your smile happy and healthy, please call our office at Crown Dentistry (916) 848-2145 or visit our website at www.crowndentistry.net. Thanks so much.