Orthodontics is a specialist area of dentistry that focuses on moving your teeth and jaws. We do this to improve the appearance of your smile and the way your teeth bite together and function. Straighter teeth are also easier to brush and floss, so orthodontics can help you to achieve a cleaner, healthier smile.
We move teeth using appliances known as braces, which can be removable or fixed to your teeth for the duration of your treatment. Braces work by moving your teeth little by little, day by day, until they’re right where we want them (perfectly straight).
Orthodontic treatment can take anything from just a few months to a couple of years, depending on how far we need to move your teeth. The good news is that braces are now very discreet – we can even fit them to the inside of your teeth.
During your treatment you’ll come in to see us every 6-10 weeks, so we can make adjustments to your brace and make sure everything’s moving in the right direction.
All of our orthodontists are registered as specialists with the General Dental Council. This means we qualified as dentists, before spending a further three years training full-time to become orthodontists. We now only straighten teeth – all day, every day. So we’ve amassed years of experience and transformed thousands of smiles.
General dentists can still provide orthodontic treatment, but they won’t have the same level of expertise as a specialist orthodontist. In most cases their training will have been much shorter, and they’ll usually provide orthodontics alongside other services.
This is known as relapse and unfortunately it’s an all too common scenario. Usually not wearing your retainers is the culprit; you may not have worn them for long enough, or not been given any to wear in the first place. Either way, your teeth will have slowly drifted back to their pre-treatment position, undoing all your hard work.
This is the last thing we want to happen, so we place a huge emphasis on retention – to make sure you keep smiling for years to come.
To discover how orthodontic treatment can help you, book a free no-obligation consultation with one of our specialist orthodontists. Call 020 8191 7732 or get in touch using our online contact form.