How Tooth Extraction Affects Dental Braces
The main goal of orthodontic work is ensuring your smile and bite pattern are healthy and aligned. There are several tools orthodontists can use to ensure that your smile looks great and your teeth can chew all types of food. Dental braces may be the first method that springs to mind, but tooth extraction is another way to preserve your teeth’s alignment.
Most people picture tooth extraction as a way to treat decayed or unhealthy teeth, but extraction is also important for fixing severe tooth crowding and protrusion. Crowding happens when there is not enough space for all of your teeth to fit inside your bite. This causes teeth to rotate unnaturally or to move too far forward or backward. Some patients’ misaligned teeth may be blocking the rest of their teeth from moving into their proper positions. In these cases, orthodontists may need to extract teeth before applying dental braces. If this is true in your case, you may need to lose a few of your teeth so the rest of them can be properly aligned.
However, a good orthodontist can recognize whether a patient truly needs tooth extraction. In some cases, milder instances of crowding and protrusion can be corrected solely through the use of dental braces, including nontraditional braces such as Invisalign clear aligners. Braces can help create more space in your dental arch so that the crowded teeth have enough room to move into alignment.
You may also opt to use palate wideners, which are orthodontic devices that widen the roof of your mouth. These can be a less painful way to create enough space for crowded teeth, but they may not be the most fitting treatment for some cases. The details will vary in every patient’s unique situation, so it’s important to find an orthodontist you can trust to do what’s best for your smile. The right orthodontist will help you weigh the pros and cons of extraction before getting braces and provide you with alternatives if they can treat your dental issues without removing teeth. At Remarkable Smiles, we strive to treat all of our patients with the best care possible. Call us today to discuss treatment options.