Clearstep
These are see-through clear plastic gum shield types of appliances,
which are fitted over the teeth and by small incremental changes,
it is possible to align out minor misalignments of your teeth.
Ceramic Brackets
Standard fixed appliances can be utilised on the outside of your teeth
by using tooth coloured ceramic brackets. These are certainly very
aesthetic and very much less noticeable than metal brackets.
Lingual Orthodontics
These are brackets that are placed on the inside of your teeth, leaving
the outside smiling part of your teeth completely free of braces.
Therefore they are invisible. This type of treatment is also offered
to all patients within the orthodontic centre. An example of these
brackets is shown below.
Elsa (An expansion
labial segment appliance)
This is a simple plate which fits in the roof of the mouth, which
has a little screw in the middle of the plate and little springs at
the front. With this plate, we are able to expand out the upper teeth
and push the upper teeth forward. We also use a fixed type of expansion
appliance, with a palatal expander. This is used in the earlier child
and is very good in that it allows one to expand out the upper teeth
without them tipping.
Thumb Sucker Device
Thumb sucking causes many problems:
• proclination of the teeth
• narrowing of the upper jaw
• change in tongue swallow pattern
• tipping back of the lower teeth
• change in jaw position
The thumb sucking plate is fixed onto the back teeth with a little device at the front which makes thumb sucking very unsatisfying, and most children stop the habit as a result of this device.
Lip Bumper
A Lip Bumper is fitted to the lower jaw. This is an appliance which allows us to nudge back the lower back teeth, thus creating a little bit more space to align out the lower front teeth if they are crowded.
Space Maintainers
Space maintainers are very useful appliances to fit early in children with mild crowding. Professor Gianelly from New York has done extensive work on the use of space maintainers and he has clearly shown that if space maintainers are fitted at the correct time then you can gain in the region of 2mm to 4mm space.
The reason for this is that the baby teeth at the back of the mouth are somewhat bigger than the permanent teeth that succeed them. If you do not have some retaining or space maintaining device in the mouth, then when the baby teeth are lost, the teeth underneath and the back teeth move forwards and all that valuable space is lost forever.
'Y' Plate
In the upper jaw we also use what we call a 'Y' plate. This plate is used to push the upper back teeth back again by 2mm to 3mm, thus regaining some lost space and enabling us to align out the upper teeth without the need for extractions.
Leone Appliance
A fixed appliance that 'nudges' the back teeth back by 2mm to 3mm, which works in a similar fashion to the 'Y' plate, as detailed above.
Orthopaedics
The practice uses:
• Twin Blocks
• M.O.A. (Activator)
These appliances
allow the lower jaw to grow to its full potential, promoting and optimising
facial growth.
Headgear (Extra Oral Traction)
Very rarely do we find the need to fit headgear. Headgear is only worn night times under our direction. We try wherever possible to avoid not only extractions but the use of headgear. We are concerned about patient management and the fact that most children hate headgear and do not co-operate well with it.
Fixed Appliances
All our treatments are finished to a high standard with the use of standard straight wire fixed appliances. These appliances were pioneered in the United States and allow one to achieve the 'all American smile', with beautifully aligned teeth, with no rotations and no spaces.
