Orthodontist Columbus OhioColumbus, Ohio’s Caring Orthodontists

Orthodontics services focus on the alignment of your teeth and jaws. This alignment improves your smile and helps you maintain good dental health. When you suffer crooked teeth, orthodontics also helps you maintain your smile with greater ease, preventing tooth decay and gum disease.

Both children and adults take advantage of these dental services. These two age groups vary in how orthodontics help them, however. They also vary in what considerations you must make before starting this type of dental care. Below are some considerations you must make before undergoing adult orthodontics treatment or delaying your child’s care.

Age Considerations for Your Orthodontics Services

Adult teeth and other oral structures go through changes children have yet to experience. This changes how you receive orthodontics services. One such example is the bone loss between tooth roots. You need enough bone to supply adequate blood to your tooth. Adults also suffer conditions like gingivitis and bone loss.

Adult oral bones are harder than children’s bones. These also stop growing in adulthood. As an adult, your oral tissues take longer to adjust when teeth move into new positions. Dentists call these limitations for adult orthodontics biomechanical limitations. They make the realignment of your teeth more difficult as an adult than as a child.

Bite Correction Issues

Correcting an improper bite provides one great reason for seeking out orthodontics services such as dental retainers or Invisalign. But for an adult with an overbite, sometimes smile correction requires tooth removal. This removal of teeth makes space for the dentist to realign your smile. Children often do not require this tooth removal.

Children also experience less worn teeth, which in adults makes an overbite more severe. So adult orthodontics services sometimes focus on making an adult smile functional, whereas greater perfection can occur in the realignment of children’s teeth.

Tooth Extraction Before Orthodontics

Adults usually have lost one or more teeth through extraction during their lifetime, before seeking orthodontics services. These old extraction sites sometimes cannot foster tooth movement. That is unless your dentist restores the area through prosthetic bone addition to the region. Still, it can prove difficult to close gaps in your teeth when these gaps exist for many years.

Adult Orthodontics Vulnerabilities

When adults undergo orthodontics care, they risk root resorption more than children. In resorption, your body reabsorbs your tooth root. This leaves the tooth unstable. Family history, root type and oral habits all factor into whether your tooth roots reabsorb in this way.

Your Columbus Ohio orthodontist closely monitors your teeth to watch for signs of this resorption process. But not catching the problem early causes the condition to become untreatable. Sometimes teeth can loosen or even fall out over time if you never receive treatment.

Other Factors in Adult Orthodontics

Adults also often have less patience than children when undergoing oral care. Some of the different issues faced by adults experiencing smile and bite correction include:

  • Expectations for treatment
  • Appearance concerns
  • Discomfort in wearing an appliance
  • Accepting instructions

Adult and Children’s Orthodontics Care in Columbus, Ohio

In Columbus, Ohio, your South High Dental team provides orthodontics care. You must decide if orthodontics services are right for yourself or your child. This type of care makes your smile more attractive and properly aligns your bite. So the outcome usually far outweighs the time and patience in treatment.

Other dental services provided by South High Dental include:

Of course, getting braces or going through other dental treatment is usually easiest in childhood. Talk to your dentist about your children’s needs for orthodontics services. Contact South High Dental now at 614-922-8952 to schedule a visit!