The majority of people in the west have crowded teeth and underdeveloped jaws and dental arches due to evolutionary changes and a soft Western diet. This can effect the shape of the face, the lips, the chin and the smile.
Commonly these result in it seeming like there are too many teeth to fit in the space and traditionally the solution to this has been to remove some teeth to make space to align the remaining ones . Often people say that they got their teeth from their dad and their mouth from their mum. However, having teeth that are too big is very rare and normally the problem is that the mouth has simply not developed as it should have done. Solving this by removing healthy teeth is clearly an undesirable way of dealing with the problem and over many years of seeing children and adults who have had orthodontic treatment in this way and the problems they have developed I have started to question this philosophy and to research other ways of getting people the smile and the bite they want.
Orthopaedics is the concept of guiding the growth of the developing jaws to obtain the best facial appearance and smile. This usually involves simple braces to expand and develop the arches.
Orthodontics is moving and straightening the teeth within the arch, to level and align them. This is usually done with fixed braces. We use the latest ‘Delta’ brace system from America which completes the treatment in half the time of conventional procedures. As an alternative we can also provide clear aligners to move the teeth if you want and although this treatment will take longer it means it will not be visible to others.
Care is taken to allow good speech, full lips, a healthy swallowing pattern, aesthetic profile and a full attractive smile.