Adult Treatment

 

Braces aren't just for kids anymore. Tooth alignment can be changed at any age if your gums and bone structure are healthy. We offer a variety of treatments that are designed for different age groups, including adults. A new smile can begin today.

 

Orthodontic treatment at later stages in life can dramatically improve your personal appearance and self-esteem. Improving the health of your teeth and gums is equally important. Crooked teeth and a bad bite can contribute to gum and bone loss, tooth decay, abnormal wear of the tooth enamel and surfaces.
 

Good news! The new techniques and appliances we use greatly reduce discomfort levels, decrease the frequency of visits, shorten treatment time and may allow you to choose from several options. Your options may include metal braces, translucent braces or transparent aligners that can be worn to improve mild cases of misaligned teeth.

 

A growing proportion of patients are adults, and they agree that it's never too late to improve their greatest asset - their smile.

 

As an adult, orthodontic treatment is carried out in a very similar way to when you are in your teens. The teeth can be moved using the same techniques as in teenagers, the only limitations are that, because you are no longer growing, correction of the jaw relationships to each other is not possible. But the teeth can be moved to help disguise a milder underlying mismatch of jaw sizes. If the discrepancy is too great, for example if there is a very small bottom jaw in relation to the top jaw, it may be necessary to move a jaw surgically to get a complete bite correction.

 

Because the bone in the jaws is denser and has a slower replacement rate in an adult, rather than when you are in your teens, getting the teeth moving takes slightly longer, and tends to be slightly slower once they are moving, which makes accurate treatment time more difficult to predict.

 

The actual movement of the teeth progresses in the same way as for teenagers. Sometimes when teeth have been extracted prior to orthodontic treatment commencing, complete space closure is impossible due to the bony ridge being thinner than a tooth width and a residual space remains at the end of treatment.

 

We have a number of options for adult treatment including:

 

  • Different combinations of metal and ceramic traditional fixed appliances.

  • Invisalign (invisible braces), which is a technique which uses a series of very thin mouthguard type appliances to align the teeth.

  • Removable appliances  for more limited changes.

 

Each technique does have limitations and individual assessment is essential when considering any of the options above.

 

At the end of treatment, the teeth need to be held in the finished position to allow the fibres in the gums to remodel in the new position. This only starts once the braces are off and can easily take up to 18 months to complete in adults. Retention is essential and as important as the active treatment, because teeth move throughout life, whether braces have been used or not, (which usually expresses itself as increased crowding in the lower front region). If no movement of your teeth is important to you, I advise a life-long commitment to retainer wear is essential.

 

 

Related resources

  • Call for details
  • Types of Adult Braces
  • Information on Braces   
  • Fees

    Contact Details

    Peachcroft Orthodontics
    Peachcroft Shopping Centre
    Peachcroft Road
    Abingdon
    OX14 2QA
    Tel: 01235 559269

    info@pcortho.co.uk

    Out of hours emergency contact number:
    NHS England: 111