Stay informed throughout your treatment.
Orthodontic Appliances Explained
We take a deep dive into some of the terms you’ll hear during your treatment and what appliances may be serve you.
Orthodontic Appliances
Your goal and our goal is shared during orthodontic treatment. We all want the most successful outcome and best positioning of your new smile. Different orthodontic appliances may be prescribed during treatment to reach those goals.
In the following sections, we’ll cover the different types of appliances that may be used during treatment.
Types of Orthodontic Appliances
When your teeth overlap and cover your bottom teeth quite a bit, we may need you to wear a removable bite plane appliance.
A bite plane helps you open your bite and prevents you from causing damage to your bottom braces when you close your mouth. Bite planes are usually worn for 6-9 months and can dramatically lessen the overlap of your bite.
A bite plane can take some getting used to, as it may slightly impair your speech at first. This usually only lasts a few days. You’ll wear your bite plane 24 hours a day. You’ll want to remove it during certain activities such as contact sports, swimming, and brushing your teeth.
When a child or teenager presents with a significant overbite, a crossbow appliance (commonly Xbow™) helps prevent the lower jaw from moving backward.
The Crossbow is the leading alternative to the Herbst Appliance. The Crossbow Class II Corrector can lead to shorter time in braces and because it’s not removable – relies less on patient cooperation that some other devices.
Rubber bands are an extremely important part of treatment. Elastics help adjust your bite and allow your top and bottom teeth to meet properly when you close your teeth together. You’ll always want to carry a package of rubber bands with you at all times.
Rubber bands should be worn 24 hours a day and only be removed during teeth brushing and contact sports when a mouth guard is put in. Rubber bands should be worn when you ear, as this is when you get the most pull from them.
Please remember that rubber bands stretch out and lose their strength over the course of the day. Change your rubber bands at least 3 times each day in order to get you the best bite through orthodontic treatment.
A fixed lingual retainer may provide you the best results with retention after treatment. For patients with great dental hygiene and a low risk of periodontal disease – fixed lingual retainers continuously keep your teeth in the perfect position.
The two most popular advantages of fixed retainers are that they stay in your mouth 24 hours a day, meaning you can’t accidentally lose them and because they’re small, they are much more comfortable to wear.
If you have an overbite, Forsus Springs may be a potential solution during treatment. Forsus Springs are attached to the upper teeth near the back molars and push the bottom teeth forward while moving the top teeth back to help correct your bite.
Patients usually wear Forsus Springs for 3-6 months and are typically installed for patients that either have a hard time managing their rubber bands, have a large overbite that elastics alone won’t correct, or as an alternative to headgear during treatment.
Forsus Springs don’t hurt when they are placed. By the time a patient has Forsus Springs installed, they’re usually a year into braces and their teeth and mouth have adapted to orthodontic appliances already.
Even though the words may sound like a lot, this is probably one of the least confusing appliances in orthodontics. The lower lingual holding arch does pretty much what it says. It is placed behind the teeth on your lower arch and holds your molars back from moving forward.
By holding your molars back, we can prevent crowding as your permament teeth are still erupting. This appliance is most often used when baby teeth are lost prematurely or a child’s lower teeth are fairly crowded to begin treatment.
We’ll answer it later, but you may already be wondering – why not use it on the top arch too? See the Nance Arch below. And yes, wouldn’t it be great if it were just called the Upper Lingual Holding Arch?
The archnemisis (orthodontist humor) of the Lower Lingual Holding Arch.
Simply, the Nance Arch holds your upper molars in place to prevent overcrowding while your permanent teeth still erupt.
Headgear is used to correct overbites and underbites when the jaw is still growing.
While wearing headgear takes a little getting used to, it’s important to keep focused on the end result. We’ll use headgear etierh to hold the upper jaw in place while the lower jaw grows into a better position, move upper molars farther back to correct spacing, or create a reverse pull to move teeth forward.
Headgear is worn 12-22 hours per day for 12-18 months.
Positioners help complete the final movements of your orthodontic treatment. You should only need to wear the appliance for 4-8 weeks.
The average braces treatment for adults last 18 to 26 months. The length of treatment is dependant on the type of braces you choose, what corrections we’re making, and other factors that vary by patient.
Every several weeks, we’ll be making adjustments to your braces as your teeth shift in response to treatment. These adjustments keep you moving towards your smile goals, but also may quicken overall treatment time.
Braces aren’t as expensive as most think.
The average cost of braces for adults treatment is $3,500 – $7,000. The costs of adult braces varies depending on the type of braces you need and the complexity of your indiviual needs.
We’ll work with you and your insurance company if you carry dental insurance to ensure you’re taking advantage of savings for treatment.
Lastly, we offer in-house as well as third-party financing options to ensure everyone has a way to afford treatment.
Braces aren’t as expensive as most think.
The average cost of braces for adults treatment is $3,500 – $7,000. The costs of adult braces varies depending on the type of braces you need and the complexity of your indiviual needs.
We’ll work with you and your insurance company if you carry dental insurance to ensure you’re taking advantage of savings for treatment.
Lastly, we offer in-house as well as third-party financing options to ensure everyone has a way to afford treatment.
Braces aren’t as expensive as most think.
The average cost of braces for adults treatment is $3,500 – $7,000. The costs of adult braces varies depending on the type of braces you need and the complexity of your indiviual needs.
We’ll work with you and your insurance company if you carry dental insurance to ensure you’re taking advantage of savings for treatment.
Lastly, we offer in-house as well as third-party financing options to ensure everyone has a way to afford treatment.
Braces aren’t as expensive as most think.
The average cost of braces for adults treatment is $3,500 – $7,000. The costs of adult braces varies depending on the type of braces you need and the complexity of your indiviual needs.
We’ll work with you and your insurance company if you carry dental insurance to ensure you’re taking advantage of savings for treatment.
Lastly, we offer in-house as well as third-party financing options to ensure everyone has a way to afford treatment.
Braces aren’t as expensive as most think.
The average cost of braces for adults treatment is $3,500 – $7,000. The costs of adult braces varies depending on the type of braces you need and the complexity of your indiviual needs.
We’ll work with you and your insurance company if you carry dental insurance to ensure you’re taking advantage of savings for treatment.
Lastly, we offer in-house as well as third-party financing options to ensure everyone has a way to afford treatment.
Braces aren’t as expensive as most think.
The average cost of braces for adults treatment is $3,500 – $7,000. The costs of adult braces varies depending on the type of braces you need and the complexity of your indiviual needs.
We’ll work with you and your insurance company if you carry dental insurance to ensure you’re taking advantage of savings for treatment.
Lastly, we offer in-house as well as third-party financing options to ensure everyone has a way to afford treatment.
Braces aren’t as expensive as most think.
The average cost of braces for adults treatment is $3,500 – $7,000. The costs of adult braces varies depending on the type of braces you need and the complexity of your indiviual needs.
We’ll work with you and your insurance company if you carry dental insurance to ensure you’re taking advantage of savings for treatment.
Lastly, we offer in-house as well as third-party financing options to ensure everyone has a way to afford treatment.
Braces aren’t as expensive as most think.
The average cost of braces for adults treatment is $3,500 – $7,000. The costs of adult braces varies depending on the type of braces you need and the complexity of your indiviual needs.
We’ll work with you and your insurance company if you carry dental insurance to ensure you’re taking advantage of savings for treatment.
Lastly, we offer in-house as well as third-party financing options to ensure everyone has a way to afford treatment.