Braces Harness Your Body’s Natural Adaptability

Braces are a powerful way to straighten your teeth because they use your body’s natural adaptability. You might think your bones are hard and fixed, but they’re not. They are dynamic. The body is constantly making and remaking your bones to make sure they remain strong and adjusted to the forces your body is subjected to.

Nowhere is this more true than in your jaw. Your jaw is designed to respond to pressure on your teeth by letting the teeth move. This is part of the reason why your teeth can get crooked: they respond to unbalanced bite forces. What braces do is subject your teeth to controlled forces. This encourages your body to remove bone from one side of the tooth and build it up on the other side. This relieves the pressure, and it lets your teeth move into place.

Braces apply force with wires and/or elastics that are attached to brackets bonded to your teeth. This gives us the ability to apply force in all three dimensions, giving us maximum control over the tooth movements.

Are You a Candidate?

Braces are designed to move your teeth into position. Although they are the oldest form of teeth straightening currently in use, they give us tremendous flexibility. This means that we can use them for almost any issue of poorly aligned teeth. This includes teeth that are:

  • Gapped
  • Crowded
  • Crooked
  • Rotated
  • Tilted
  • Raised
  • Lowered

If you have any of these teeth alignment problems, braces can work for you. They can even work in cases where a gap is caused by a lost tooth, although we might also recommend replacing a lost tooth with restorative dentistry.

However, to be a candidate for braces, you must have overall good general dental health. In addition, you have to be committed to good oral hygiene. If you have a condition that braces can treat, you are in good dental health, and you are committed to oral hygiene, then you are a candidate for braces.

Are Braces Best for You?

These days, we have many ways to straighten your teeth. It’s important to consider them all to decide whether they are the right choice for your teeth straightening.

Perhaps the best advantage is that they provide the most control and force for moving your teeth. They can be used in situations where other straightening methods simply won’t work. Plus, braces have the best predictability. They have been used for so long that we can most accurately predict your results.

However, braces do have some disadvantages. Most people think about the appearance. While modern braces can be more subtle than traditional braces, they are still visible.

More important is that they can be a challenge to clean. You will need to adopt a vigorous oral hygiene routine to make sure your teeth and gums stay healthy during treatment.

In addition, braces do limit the foods you can eat. You have to avoid foods that can damage braces or can cause bad hygiene challenges when you eat them. This can include some popular foods, and for some people, this is a dealbreaker.

They aren’t removable, so you have the hygiene challenges and diet limitations for the entire time you’re undergoing treatment.

Speaking of time, it can take a year or more to achieve results. You have to be prepared for this from the beginning.

Are You Considering Braces in Torrance?

If you are unhappy with gapped, crooked, or crowded teeth, Let cosmetic dentist Dr. Webber help you decide on the best solution to achieve the beautiful, straight smile that will give you the confidence you want in personal and professional situations. Please call (310) 534-3477 today for a free braces consultation at Simply Smiles in Torrance, CA.