Braces are an orthodontic treatment option that uses gentle and constant pressure to correct misaligned teeth. Braces do not just offer cosmetic benefits by helping you realize a beautiful smile, but also play a significant role in rectifying different dental issues and improving your oral health. So how do you know whether you need braces? This blog discusses some indicators to watch out for. 

You Want to Treat a Temporomandibular Joint Disorder (TMD)

TMJ disorder occurs when you have an issue with your temporomandibular joint, which connects the jaw and the skull. The jaw is responsible for movements, such as yawning, speaking, and chewing. When your joint is damaged, inflamed, or misaligned, it may lead to many signs and symptoms, including the following:

  • A popping or clicking sound when closing or opening your mouth, often accompanied by limited jaw movement.
  • Challenges chewing—You experience discomfort or problems while biting or chewing that make you avoid certain foods.
  • Your jaw sometimes gets locked in a closed or open position.
  • Experiencing facial pain around your jaw, temples, and cheeks
  • You may experience a feeling of fullness in your ears or ear-aches, even without any symptoms of infection.
  • Headaches
  • Jaw pain, which can be tenderness or persistent pain in your jaw joint, radiating to your shoulders, neck, or face.

Braces apply gentle pressure on your jaws and teeth, gradually moving them into the ideal position. Regarding TMJ,  braces can assist you in the following ways:

  • Braces address dental misalignment, such as malocclusion. When your teeth fail to meet together appropriately, it exerts pressure on your jaw joint. Braces gradually move teeth, creating a comfortable and balanced bite. The reduced stress on your TMJ also promotes relief from TMD symptoms.
  • Most TMD patients grind their teeth while asleep. The constant pressure on your jaw can result in inflammation and pain. Braces improve tooth positioning, alleviating jaw tension and lowering the possibility of teeth grinding.

You Have Crooked or Crowded Teeth

If your teeth twist, overlap, or do not align properly, it may be an indication that you require orthodontic treatment. Crooked teeth can significantly impact your appearance and make it challenging to maintain good oral hygiene, which can potentially cause tooth decay and gum disease.

Braces straighten your teeth by applying gentle and constant pressure over time. It is possible because beneath the gums is a membrane surrounded by bone that attaches the teeth to the jaw. Since the membrane regulates tooth position, pressure exerted by braces targets it.

Here is how different parts of braces play a significant role in straightening teeth:

  • Brackets — Your dentist will connect brackets with wires that exert even pressure essential for teeth realignment.
  • Bands—Dentists place bands around the brackets. Bands boost pressure on your jaw.
  • Archwire connects parts of the appliance, applying pressure to teeth.
  • Spacers — As their name suggests, they increase space at the back of your mouth, making more room for the braces if you have a small mouth profile or pushing your jaw forward.
  • Buccal tubes—Dentists attach buccal tubes to molars, anchoring other parts of braces in one area. It makes it seamless for the dentist to regulate the braces' tightness from one spot.

Gaps or Spaces Between Your Teeth

You may be a candidate for braces if there are gaps between teeth. Spacing happens when your teeth are smaller than the available space. It could also be due to missing teeth, protrusive teeth, abnormal tissue attachments to your gums, or impacted teeth. When you have one or more missing teeth, the surrounding teeth can shift into the space created by those spaces.

Braces could eliminate the spaces between your teeth, preventing them from sliding or becoming crooked. The orthodontic treatment closes the spacing by moving your teeth into proper alignment within the arch.

You Want to Improve Your Speech

Misaligned or crooked teeth can impact how your lips, tongue and teeth interact as you talk. Some sounds require the tongue to be placed in a particular way against your teeth. Therefore, misaligned teeth could prevent the accurate pronunciation of these sounds.

Here is how your orthodontic treatment can fix your speech challenges:

Better Lip Navigation

Misaligned teeth can affect your lip movement, leading to difficulty in forming certain sounds. Braces address speech impediments by establishing a stable foundation for your lips to move correctly when talking.

Enhancing Tongue Positioning

Braces are ideal for aligning your teeth correctly, resulting in improved tongue posture and a suitable surface for your tongue to rest against when speaking. These two factors are crucial for producing clear sounds and addressing any speech difficulties.

Modifying Your Oral Cavity’s Shape

Braces gradually shift the oral cavity’s shape, including opening your lower or upper arch.  It allows your teeth and tongue to function in harmony when you speak, enhancing your speech.

Correcting Your Bite Difficulties

Braces help correct bite issues that affect how your lower and upper jaws meet when you talk. For instance, when braces rectify an open bite, the result is enhanced pronunciation of sounds and words.

You Want to Prevent Gum Disease

The orthodontic treatment can prevent gum disease as follows:

  • Proper teeth alignment — Misaligned teeth can create tight gaps between your teeth that can be difficult to clean well. The accumulation of tartar and plaque can result in gum inflammation and disease. Orthodontic treatment aligns your teeth while preventing a buildup of dangerous bacteria.
  • Improved gum protection — Aligned teeth ensure that your gums fit well around every tooth. The proper fit provides natural protection against bacterial invasion, thereby reducing the risk of periodontal disease.
  • Easier dental hygiene — Properly aligned teeth are easier to clean through flossing and brushing. Effective oral hygiene lowers the risk of gum inflammation, a precursor to gum disease.

How to Prevent Gum Disease with Braces

Here is how braces help prevent gum disease:

  • Establish an excellent dental hygiene routine — Although practicing proper oral hygiene with braces may be challenging, ensure you brush and floss daily using a toothbrush with soft bristles to clean around the gumline and the brackets. You can also use an orthodontic brush to clean the spots between the wires and brackets.
  • Use an irrigator — Cleaning teeth with conventional dental floss may be troublesome for individuals who have braces. Therefore, purchasing a water irrigator can make your cleaning easier. The irrigator device releases a small amount of pressurized water, making it easier to wash and rinse the spaces between teeth.
  • Using mouthwash — Antibacterial mouthwash can help reduce the likelihood of plaque accumulation and the development of gum disease.
  • Routine orthodontic appointments — As an addition to at-home dental care, you must also adhere to your orthodontic appointment schedule. During these appointments, your dentist will diagnose and address issues that could pose a risk to your dental health.

You Want to Improve Digestion

The orthodontic treatment can enhance digestion as follows:

Improving Chewing Efficiency

When your teeth are straight or well aligned, it is much easier to chew your food into little, digestible pieces, lowering your stomach’s workload. The outcome includes the following:

  • Better nutrition intake
  • Minimal strain on your digestive system
  • A decreased risk of bloating and indigestion

Enhancement of Swallowing

Some orthodontic challenges impact more than your digestion; they may also affect your ability to swallow. A crooked or twisted bite could make it challenging to transfer food from your mouth to the throat effectively. Addressing these issues can help you enhance your swallowing.

Minimizing Heartburn and Acid Reflux

When you fail to chew food thoroughly, your stomach generates more acid to break it down. Therefore, it could increase your risk of heartburn and acid reflux. The orthodontic treatment helps enhance your chewing, thereby reducing the generation of excessive stomach acid.

Promotes a Balanced Diet

With misaligned teeth, you can find yourself avoiding some foods that seem too problematic to chew. These can include the following:

  • Seeds and nuts
  • Fruits and veggies
  • Whole grains

While this can result in nutritional deficiencies, orthodontic treatment can help increase the variety of foods you eat.

You Want to Boost Your Self-Esteem

Orthodontic treatments can help improve your self-esteem. A person who is self-conscious of their teeth may hide their smile due to a lack of confidence in professional and social settings. Correcting your misaligned teeth can give you a sense of pride in your physical appearance and more smiles and boldness when engaging with others.

You want to Improve Your facial shape and Prevent Bone Erosion

Orthodontic braces impact the teeth’s position and also restructure the underlying bone through a procedure called bone remodeling. As the braces exert pressure on your teeth, the nearby bone adapts to the force. The adaptation occurs due to the activity of cells known as osteoblasts and osteoclasts.

As the braces apply pressure to your teeth, the bone positioned near each tooth undergoes resorption because of the osteoclast activity. Consequently, new bone development occurs through osteoblasts on the other side of the teeth being repositioned. The coordinated procedure allows the teeth to shift within the bone, ultimately resulting in changes in dental alignment and the overall shape of the jaw.

In other words, braces can also improve the appearance of your face. Most patients can spot facial symmetry features as the orthodontic treatment progresses.

The changes in facial characteristics with braces include the following:

Cheekbone and Jawline

Braces significantly improve your cheekbones and jawline. As braces align your teeth and rectify your bite, your jaw’s alignment improves, often leading to a better sculpted appearance. It leads to a more accentuated look as the reorganization of the soft tissues in your face occurs.

Cheeks and Lips Support

Teeth alignment supports your cheeks and lips. When braces align your teeth correctly, they provide enhanced support for your facial features, resulting in a more youthful appearance. Orthodontic patients often experience improved aesthetics within a few weeks after receiving braces.

You Want to Correct Bite Alignment Issues

Using braces involves improving overall health by rectifying the following bite issues:

  • Overbite — An overbite is a phenomenon that involves your upper front teeth extending too much over the lower teeth.
  • Underbite – An underbite happens when your lower teeth overlap your upper teeth.
  • Openbite — An openbite is a form of malocclusion where your teeth do not meet as they should after you close your mouth.
  • Crossbite — A crossbite involves your upper teeth fitting inside the lower teeth whenever you bite. A crossbite can cause breathing and speaking issues.

Braces correct bite issues and jaw alignment by doing the following:

  • Braces have archwires, elastics, and brackets that apply pressure to your teeth. Over time, the force allows jaw structures and teeth to shift into healthier positions.
  • Your dentist will use the orthodontic treatment to design specific movements to rectify underbites and overbites. For instance, elastics can guide the bite into proper alignment by pulling lower teeth forward and upper teeth back. 
  • In adolescents, dentists use specialized appliances in conjunction with braces to guide jaw development and address skeletal issues.
  • Palatal expanders used with braces gradually widen your upper jaw to improve crossbite and create room for crowded teeth. After the palatal reaches the appropriate width, braces finalize tooth alignment.

You Suffer From Sleep Apnea

Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder where a patient pauses breathing intermittently during sleep. The breathing disruption is due to the absence of oxygen supply, which notifies the brain, momentarily waking you so you start breathing properly. The pause can disrupt your sleep.

Your dentist can recommend braces for sleep apnea depending on the root cause of sleep apnea. Misaligned teeth, crowded teeth and crooked teeth can lead to teeth grinding. Sleep apnea is a common phenomenon among people who grind their teeth when asleep. Braces can rectify the issue by moving your teeth to the right positions.

Find a Knowledgeable Dentist Near Me

Wearing braces can improve your smile appearance, ensure better oral hygiene, and prevent issues associated with misaligned teeth. While the above-discussed signs can be helpful, the most effective way to determine whether you need braces is to consult a qualified dentist. La Puente Advanced Dentistry can examine your jaw, teeth, and facial structure and take digital diagnostic images to review your tooth position before recommending the best treatment option. We can also discuss your oral health goals and concerns. Please call us at 626-626-7075 to schedule your initial free consultation.