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For Adults
Let’s Get to Work!
One of every five orthodontic patients in the United States is over age 21. Nearly 50% of our orthodontic patients are adults.
The biology of tooth movement is the same at any age. Nevertheless, adult treatment can present challenges. If you are no longer growing; have missing, prosthetically restored, or replaced teeth; or age-related loss of supporting gum and bone around the roots of teeth, let a specialist help you.
Teeth often can be straightened without braces using Invisalign aligners and other innovative clear or invisible options. Correction of face and jaw disharmonies relies on nonsurgical remodeling of the jaw joints and bone surrounding the roots of teeth or surgery.
Veneers, crowns, and bonding procedures are rarely acceptable treatments for misaligned, crooked teeth. These procedures should be reserved for repairing injured or decayed teeth.
Your Bite Matters – TMJ Disorders.
If your teeth are not in their correct positions, your teeth can force your jaw out of its correct position. The lower jaw will shift to protect the teeth from collision and fracture. The jaw joints and muscles suffer.
Are TMJ Disorders Correctable?
Probably, though it depends on the extent to which your jaw joints have been damaged and, most importantly, whether there has been irreparable damage to your joints. Even then, it’s often possible to establish comfortable function.
Success rates range from 72% to 93% depending on the problems present and treatment employed. For a more extended discussion of temporomandibular joint disorders see TMJ Disorders.
Peace of Mind - Real Lasting Solutions
Doctors may disagree on your best treatment but they should never disagree on your diagnosis1 or condition. Nevertheless, diagnostic perceptions vary from doctor to doctor, and reflect the doctor’s experience, education and training, keenness of observation, clarity of thought, and thoroughness. As a result, doctors may view your condition imperfectly and arrive at incomplete or incorrect conclusions. Doctors rarely treat the problems they don’t see. In my experience, facial, jaw joint, and muscle relationships are most often dismissed or overlooked.
Treatment planning, in contrast with diagnosis, is far more subjective. As the saying goes, “There’s more than one way to treat a problem.” The question is, “Which is best for you?” The mechanotherapies, treatment times, potential benefits, risks, cost, and post treatment stability are just a few of the variables you will need to consider when evaluating alternative treatment plans. We’ll advise. You decide.
Let’s get it done! Call us at (248) 282-7298.
Above: Orthodontics for Adults video
Footnote: (1) Diagnosis is the detailed, factual description of your condition obtained by thorough examination.