What Is a Full Orthodontic Treatment and Its Benefits?

Orthodontic therapy is a technique to straighten or move and improve the appearance of your teeth and their functionality. The treatment also helps to care for the long-term health of your teeth, gums, and jaw joints by distributing the biting pressure over all your teeth.

Why Should You Consider Orthodontic Therapy?

If you have crooked or crowded teeth, orthodontic treatment helps straighten them or move them into appropriate positions. In addition, the therapy helps improve the appearance of the teeth and the way the teeth bite and makes cleaning them comfortable.

You can consider orthodontic therapy if you have protruding teeth or misalignment with your jaws resulting in an improper bite. Orthodontic therapy helps correct all problems associated with your teeth and jaws, making it essential for you to consider the treatment if affected by these issues.

What Is Included in Orthodontic Treatment?

When seeking orthodontic therapy, the complexity of the situation affecting you determines what is included in your treatment. For example, if you have mild to moderate orthodontic imperfections, you can benefit from Invisalign orthodontics, requiring you to wear transparent aligners over your teeth to straighten them quickly with removable braces. Unfortunately, if your situation is complicated, the dentist suggests time-tested and proven traditional braces with metal brackets, wires, and bands mounted over your teeth when undergoing treatment.

Conventional braces are not aesthetically pleasing but are effective in moving your teeth to their desired positions, enabling you to experience the full benefits of orthodontic treatment after completing it in three years or more.

After completing orthodontic therapy, either with transparent clear aligners or traditional braces, your teeth need to be held in the new positions for some time. Therefore orthodontics in Petaluma, CA, recommends that you wear retainers on your teeth to maintain your newly positioned teeth until the surrounding gums and your jawbone stabilize. Depending on the complexity of the situation, the retainers might be fixed or removable.

What Is Expected from Orthodontic Treatment?

When you seek orthodontic therapy to align your teeth expect some discomfort when wearing braces, especially when eating or talking if you have traditional braces over your teeth. Thankfully if you are receiving treatment with transparent aligners, getting accustomed to them is not challenging, although you might have a lisp when speaking until you get used to having them in your mouth. In addition, the treatment time varies for every patient depending on the complexity of their situation. Finally, orthodontic therapy doesn’t provide overnight results, making it essential for you to remain patient with your treatment expecting to notice a marked improvement in how your teeth align to give you better dental health and a beautiful smile.

When you decide to receive orthodontic therapy from Petaluma orthodontics, you can expect to have straighter teeth complementing a beautiful smile besides benefiting from an aligned bite providing several benefits. They are:

• Reduced Risk of Tooth Decay: crooked and crowded teeth are difficult to clean, making you vulnerable to the risk of tooth decay and cavities. However, after investing in orthodontics, you can reduce your chances of persistent problems with tooth decay by finding relief from frequent visits to dentists to fill cavities.
• Periodontal Disease Management: Misaligned teeth make it challenging for you to manage periodontal infections. Excessive plaque remaining on your teeth and below the gum line makes you a victim of periodontal infections when the plaque hardens into tartar. Periodontal disease has no cure if you allow it to progress and requires lifelong maintenance. However, making orthodontic treatment part of your periodontal disease therapy offers you a comprehensive approach to establishing better oral health.
• Alleviate Symptoms of Temporomandibular Joint Disorders: the movement of your TMJ joint becomes affected by the way your teeth bite. The unnatural biting relationship ensures the TMJ joint has to compromise with its normal range of motion when eating and speaking. Aligning your smile helps promote healthier TMJ movement, reducing muscle tension in your jaw joints.
• Fewer Dental Emergencies: Overbites or underbites increase your risk of dental injuries, especially if you are involved in contact sports. It makes you a frequent visitor to emergency dentists seeking treatments for broken, chipped, and knocked-out teeth. However, when you decide to align your smile, it helps reduce your emergency dental visits to result in considerable savings.

If you have misaligned teeth and jaws, Petaluma Dental Group provides orthodontic therapy after evaluating your situation and suggesting a treatment best suited for your needs. Please consult with the practice today to start your journey to align your teeth with complete orthodontic therapy and benefit from it to enjoy a beautiful smile.