TREATMENT

ORTHODONTICS

Orthodontics (from Greek ‘ortho’ – right, straight and ‘odont’ – tooth) – is a section of stomatology which is being actively developed and its tasks are to study the reasons and elimination of anomaly of bite, tooth position, form of dental arch, improvement of face proportions and also preventive measures of such impairments.

There are different types of orthodontic problems. Wrong bite can be a consequence of bulging teeth or teeth situated too close or too far from one another. Protruding lower jaw or far situated upper jaw cause non-full bite – progenia. Recessive lower jaw or protruding upper jaw form deep bite - prognathism. Both these bite anomalies are characterized by absence of contact of both jaws’ teeth by their closing.

Any orthodontic problem is accompanied by serious problems. And the most visible one is esthetic. Uneven, crooked teeth lead to situation when person feels her/himself embarrassed in the society, is ashamed to open mouth and smile. Those who always close their mouth because of confusion of own teeth (and those who do not hide their crookness) will be not hired for any prestige position. Such people can also have problems in personal life.

However, how important visual esthetic side of orthodontic can be from the point of view of health because the most important is invisible part of the problem.

Uneven position of teeth in the row, their close location make full mouth cavity hygiene impossible. It in its turn inevitably leads to teeth diseases and lasting parodentium which is dangerous because it comes insensibly - nothing aches only gums bleed a little bit and teeth became loose. And when the patient comes to the doctor it appears that nothing can be made and it finishes with loss of healthy by look teeth.

Wrong bite is unfavorable for the condition of the whole teeth-jaw system which causes higher teeth rubbing and diseases of temple low-jaw joint.

Bite anomalies do not give ability to bite food right which leads to higher load and illnesses of other parts of digestion system.

Even 20 years ago orthodontic treatment was given only to children. Today the situation has changed, new technologies appeared and the bite can be corrected at any age. Today the majority of patients at doctor-orthodontist are adults. On the picture there is an example of treatment for patient with vivid bite anomaly.

Main orthodontic devices are removable plates and static braces. Both constructions provide pressure on teeth making them move in necessary side.

For correction of bite for adults mainly braces are used. Removable plates are used for children treatment or for minor anomalies of bite for adults.

Static braces consist of set of elements – braces which are fixes on teeth with the help of special fluorine composite and slots in which metal arch made of special material is set.

Braces are made from special glass fiber, plastic or gold, pure titanic, mono-crystal, composite and ceramic. Transparent braces are made from whole sapphire which is specially grown for that aim.

Modern braces do not resemble awkward metal constructions of the past - they look more like jewelry than medical device (by the way, a lot of young people use them as jewelry).