Orthodontics Treatment

What is Orthodontics / Braces

Orthodontic dentistry deals with the study and treatment for correcting misaligned teeth, improper bites, incorrect spacing between teeth, crooked teeth, protruding teeth, difficulty in speaking with clarity, chewing etc. Orthodontics treatment helps in fixing the patient’s teeth aesthetically and functionally. If not treated, aesthetic issues can affect one’s self-esteem, confidence and even facial appearance, and functional problems can contribute to poor dental health and other health issues such as inadequate nutrition or even severe headaches. The treatment not only brings back your great smile, but also reduces the risk of tooth decay and gum diseases.

Right Age for Orthodontics

Orthodontics treatment, unlike the common myth, is recommended for patients of any age, not just children. Orthodontics treatment in adults helps to correct the undesirable but natural movement of teeth that occurs as people grow older. For children, we recommend that they have an initial consultation no later than age 12 as by this age enough permanent teeth have erupted and enough jaw growth has occurred to identify problems. Early consultation allows both the dentist and the patient to determine the optimum time for treatment to begin. You don’t have to wait until the child has all of his or her permanent teeth. Early treatment provides the opportunity for young jaw bones to attain good form and eliminate the need for more costly treatments. With proper timing, children may not have to endure years of embarrassment.

Types of Braces

dentist, local dentist, general dentist, family dentist, cosmetic dentist, specialty dentist, emergency dentist, dental office, Mississauga has a highly experienced Gold Medalist dentist who specializes in providing Orthodontics treatment in Mississauga. The clinic provides affordable treatment with various options to choose from, such as:

Full or partial braces
Tooth coloured braces
Ceramic braces
Lingual braces
Stainless steel braces
Removable appliances and retainers
Invisible braces and clear aligners, invisalign etc.

Orthodontics Treatment/Procedure

The first or the initial appointment is free. At the first appointment, the dentist will diagnose the problem and provide a treatment plan for you. The dentist in the diagnostic phase will do the following services for you:

Recognize the characteristics of your malocclusion, its complexity and how it impacts your facial form
Design a treatment plan based on the specific needs and desires of the patient
Present the treatment strategy to the patient in such a way that the patient fully understands the ramifications of his/her decision
Provide an estimate of the time and cost involved in the treatment

The placement of the braces can be done in the next two appointments. During the second and third appointments, the dentist will do the following services for you:

Provide a referral for a cephalographic or a panoramic x-ray
Making orthodontic and dental records
Taking impressions of the mouth
Putting on braces

Once the course of active orthodontic treatment is over, patients may typically wear retainers, which maintain the teeth in their improved positions, while surrounding bone reforms around them. The retainers pose no discomfort to the patient and are generally worn full-time for a period, anywhere from just a few weeks to few years.

The cost of the treatment varies as per the options chosen by the patient and the severity of the dental problem. Typically, the cost could range from $2,000 to $6,200, part of which may be covered by your dental insurance. Patients pay an initial deposit of $500 to $2,000 and the balance is payable over a period of 18 months.

For more information, please click on Patient Resources.

FAQs

Why should I, or someone in my family, get orthodontic treatment?

You are never too old for braces. The Canadian Association of Orthodontists recommends that your child get an initial orthodontic consult when they are 7-8 years old. Around this age, while some baby teeth are still present, subtle problems with jaw growth and erupting teeth can be identified. This is important because some orthodontic problems are easier to correct if they are found before all the permanent teeth erupt. Even so, most orthodontic patients begin active treatment only between ages 10 and 14. The more recent philosophy at Bristol Dental Clinic is to continue monitoring the child’s growth to find the right time to start the orthodontic treatment with a view to ensuring that the treatment time is the shortest. At Bristol Dental Clinic, we are of the opinion that starting an orthodontic treatment too early does not really benefit because the end time for the treatment would rarely change as the treatment would only complete when the child has crossed a significant portion of his or her growth curve. However, depending upon the case, an early orthodontic intervention could be warranted. If you recognize any of the following signs in your child or yourself, it would be worth the effort to schedule a consultation with the orthodontist. These signs are early or late loss of baby teeth, speech difficulty, lisp, inability to biting pizza with your front teeth, difficulty chewing food, sucking thumbs, breathing through mouth, protruded, crowded, or misplaced teeth, grinding and clenching of teeth, jaws that shift, make sounds, protrude or are sunken, biting the cheek or biting into the roof of the mouth, inability to comfortably close lips, malocclusions, poor bite (teeth that meet in an abnormal way or don’t meet at all), facial imbalance or asymmetry or features out of proportion to the rest of the face, etc.

Am I too old for braces?

A healthy bite is important whether you are 60 or 6. At Bristol Dental Clinic, you are never too old to start an orthodontic treatment. We get this question very frequently because most patients believe that orthodontic treatment is purely cosmetic and only to improve their look. This is a wrong belief because almost over 95 percent of the cases we treat have some functional disorder to correct. While patients only see their smile and teeth getting fixed, we do a whole lot more work to fix the bite or other functional irregularity which is requirement for any age. We have treated patients from 7 years (early intervention) old to 52 years old. It is amazing to note how different motivating factors lead people to start an orthodontic treatment. Some do it because their career demands it or their life situations have changed or because they are unable to chew food properly and have finally realized the need for correction. Some even do a second time to manage orthodontic relapse which may have happened after many years of not wearing the fixed retainer. Some do it late only because they couldn't afford it earlier. Thanks to todays smaller, less visible, more comfortable orthodontic appliances, including fixed braces and removable appliances, more and more adults are finding orthodontic treatment appealing.

Does orthodontic treatment hurt?

Orthodontic treatment don’t hurt but you can experience some discomfort. Whenever you put some unnatural appliances in your mouth the first time and move teeth there is some discomfort for the first 2-3 days. Once your teeth settles to the new position, your mouth gets used to the change and you then get used to the appliance too. The discomfort then wear away quickly until you do the next adjustment which could be in a month or 2 months. This time the discomfort feeling would last for a shorter time. As you get used to the appliance, you will not feel any discomfort during future adjustments. Suggested medication is simple – Advil or Tylenol for 1-2 days.

What is an orthodontist?

Orthodontists are dental specialists trained to treat facial growth and dental development growth issues such as jaw irregularities, crowding, crooked teeth, overbite, underbite, malocclusion, misalignment, and other facial irregularities. Only 5-6 percent of the general dentists get accepted into the post-graduate orthodontic specialty program. At Bristol Dental Clinic, our orthodontist has a double post-graduate degree in orthodontics. Only an orthodontist has the theoretical knowledge of the inter-relation between movements of your teeth, jaws and your facial muscles to align teeth and jaws to provide a very pleasant appearance and an excellent bite. Without a proper bite, patients risk jaw pain, discomfort, constant headaches or even TMJ pain as they grow older. While some general dentists do orthodontic work based on experience, they will attempt less complex treatments, take much longer time and could achieve a less ideal result. Aligning teeth and jaws is all what an orthodontist does every day.

What process is involved in orthodontic treatments

At Bristol Dental Clinic, we follow a very systematic and structured protocol for orthodontic treatments. The first step is to have an initial consult with the orthodontist to understand the condition, treatment complexity, treatment time and an estimate of the price. The next step is to find the appropriate start time to initiate the treatment such that the total treatment time is the minimum. The next step after that is to do the orthodontic records, where we take a PAN, a CEPH, eight facial profile pictures and a study model of your jaw bite. These records are then traced on a software and scientifically assessed by the orthodontist and then presented at a 40 minute detailed treatment planning discussion appointment. About 30 – 40 topics concerned with the treatment are discussed at this appointment which would include end result objectives, benefits, risks, responsibilities, etc. After the discussion, the patient can still decide if he or she wants to continue with the treatment at Bristol Dental Clinic. If the patient decides to proceed, the patient signs the orthodontic consent form, pays the deposit and we schedule you for the first active appointment which could be bonding of the braces or scanning for invisalign. Once the active treatment has started, you will need to visit the orthodontist once in 6 – 8 weeks for adjustment and re-evaluation. At the end of the treatment, the braces are debonded, and patients are given a permanent and a removable retainer. At Bristol Dental Clinic, we have a single fee for the entire orthodontic treatment. Please note that treatments such as extractions, restoration, scaling etc. that need to be done by another dentist at Bristol Dental Clinic are not part of the orthodontic treatment and you are under no obligation to do those treatments at Bristol Dental Clinic because you started orthodontic treatment here.

While I’m getting orthodontic treatment, do I still need to make appointments with my regular dentist?

Absolutely and 100 percent – you must see your family dentist during the duration of the orthodontic treatment (and even after!). Before you start the treatment, we would ask you to get a clearance from your dentist or if you don’t have one, from our family dentist at Bristol Dental Clinic. This is very important because orthodontic treatment has many risks, the most important being stability of teeth structure, integrity of the roots, good oral hygiene and good condition of gums. Needless to mention, you have to fix all cavities before we start the treatment. You must see your family dentist at regular intervals to get your scaling done and mouth checked. Otherwise, you would have very straight and beautiful teeth but with a whole lot of other problems like cavities, periodontal disease, white spots, recession etc. by the time you finish the treatment.

Are braces affordable?

At Bristol Dental Clinic, our model is to provide quality service at affordable prices. We have a qualified orthodontist (specialist) and we compete only with reputed orthodontists. We do not compete with general dentist who do orthodontics. Our pricing is such that we are comparable or less expensive than all the reputed orthodontic offices in Mississauga or Brampton. The cost of the treatment depends upon the age, complexity, treatment time and the treatment options. At Bristol Dental Clinic, we have done orthodontic treatment ranging from $1,000 to $6,800, the lower band being very easy and short-term cases. Contrary to the common misconception or the market practice, we don’t charge a premium for invisalign over braces. Payments are affordable as we provide interest free installments payments stretching over the duration of the treatment. If you have an insurance covering orthodontic treatments, some portion of the cost would be covered by your plan or a health spending account. Get us a written quote from a reputed orthodontist and we will beat that price by another 10% if our price is higher for the same treatment plan.