Did you know that today orthodontic treatments for adults are possible? A few years ago orthodontics could only be carried out in people who had not reached adulthood, but with technological advances it is now possible to carry out this type of treatment in adults.
It is very interesting to know a little more about this type of treatment and it is that even people over 50, 60 and even 70 years old have been able to undergo orthodontic treatments for adults with excellent results.
What are orthodontic treatments?
The first thing we want to tell you is the answer to a question that many of us who are not experts in the area can surely ask ourselves and it is the following: What are orthodontic treatments?
An orthodontic treatment is simply one that seeks to diagnose, prevent and correct different types of complications that may occur in our teeth. The most common complications or anomalies to be treated with orthodontics are, for example, problems with the position or shape of the teeth, chewing disorders, among other things.
We must know that orthodontic treatments for adults or for young people are not only performed to improve the aesthetics of the mouth, they are also often necessary to improve its functioning (chew well, among other things).
What are the three classifications of orthodontic treatments for adults or young people?
At present you can find mainly three types of classifications in orthodontic treatments for adults or young people.
Each of the classifications will depend on the type of problem to be worked on. Let’s learn a little more about each of these classifications below:
- Preventive orthodontics. As its name indicates, it is a part of orthodontics whose main objective is to prevent possible future deviations that are achieved after making a diagnosis or exhaustive study of the case. This type of orthodontics is widely used in pediatric dentistry. In the case of preventive dentistry, it is very common to find the use of bad habit correctors, for example, the use of recognized space maintainers.
- Corrective orthodontics. Corrective dentistry is one that must be applied when the anomaly is already present. It is the classification of orthodontics that is mostly used in adults and different types of appliances can be used to solve such anomalies.
- Interceptive orthodontics. It is that orthodontics that is carried out to intervene in different problems that are already happening, but that can still be treated to obtain a positive result. It is one of the least used in adults.
Side effects of orthodontic treatment
A very common question that we usually ask ourselves before any type of treatment is about the side effects that it may have. For that reason, we invite you to know what are some of the side effects of orthodontic treatment.
- Pain. It is one of the most common side effects and one that will surely be found when performing this type of treatment. Usually the pain appears only at the beginning of the treatment, after a while it diminishes until it almost disappears. The advantage is that with a simple analgesic we can reduce pain by a large percentage.
- Sores (also known as canker sores). There is nothing more common in orthodontics than the appearance of small sores or canker sores on the tongue, on the lips or even on the cheeks. This type of side effect is due to the contact that exists between the different parts of the mouth and the appliances used for orthodontics. The effect usually passes after the first few days when the mouth gets used to having appliances.
- Radicular reabsorption. Root resorption is something to take into account a lot and that our orthodontic expert will surely look at very calmly before starting the treatment. This side effect is simply the reduction of the roots and in most cases it is not problematic at all. Of course, there are cases in which the teeth could fall out due to resorption and that is why the previous study of the case is so important.
- There is a possibility that the teeth will return to their initial position after the treatment has been carried out. What can be done to avoid this annoying side effect? Some tools such as retainers can be used.
- Increased risk of cavities. When traditional appliances are used, the chances of tooth decay are greatly increased. For that reason, when performing orthodontic treatments a key point is to have an excellent oral cleaning to avoid these problems.
- Increases the risk of gum disease. The same thing that happens with cavities is true with gum disease. All this can be avoided, as we discussed previously, with good oral hygiene.
What is the best orthodontic treatment?
As you may have already realized, there are different classifications of orthodontic treatments and that means that there is also a lot of variety in the types of treatments.
For those of you who are wondering what is the best orthodontic treatment? We tell you that there is no clear answer to such a question. And it is that for a patient a treatment can be much better and for another that same treatment can be little effective.
And then: How to make a decision when choosing orthodontic treatment? The truth is that it is very easy, the first thing we must do is have a conversation with the expert who will take our case.
After that, we can make a comparison between the prices, the advantages and disadvantages and many other aspects of the treatments that they can offer us. Finally, we will come to the conclusion of what is the best orthodontic treatment for our case.
In the same way, if you should know that in recent years there has been a lot of bet on invisible orthodontics and that these treatments offer great advantages: the braces are invisible, they can be removed to eat, they usually offer faster results, among other things.
