Orthodontics: Braces Will Straighten Your Teeth

Orthodontics: Braces Will Straighten Your Teeth

The main way that we realign the teeth these days is with the use of braces. This is something that is insanely common here in the United States, so common, in fact, that one out of every three people in the country will, at some point, have their teeth realigned with the use of this amazing series of pieces designed to help put the appropriate force on the teeth. This being the case, there’s been a constant improvement in the technology that we use to realign the teeth, and I do mean constant. There is a lot of improvement yet to come, I’m sure, but for the time being, we’ve still made a whole lot of progress when it comes to fixing the alignment of our teeth, and no mistake.orthodontics

Now, if you pay attention to the way that technology goes, you can always find a pattern. In some cases, the pattern is that things are getting bigger (like when it comes to televisions), or they’re getting more defined (again, we’re talking about televisions and the like, although in an interesting twist, you can actually watch the evolution of the cellphone go from big to small to large again as soon as we were able to use the internet in order to watch things like television shows or Netflix. If you can figure out the demands that people will have, you can literally watch as the technology charts its course.

So, having said all of that, here are just a few things that have been done to improve the standard metal braces since it came out in the seventies, or to improve on the design in some way.

1. Ceramic or porcelain brackets

The first big upgrade was the use of things like ceramic or porcelain brackets. I know, this doesn’t sound like a big deal to a lot of people, but the reality of the matter is that one of the biggest complaints that people had when it comes to the whole idea of braces was that they are, in fact, so very visible. You see, it’s very hard to hide the fact that you have a mouthful of metal, and the only thing you could do to hide it, for a long time, is to never smile and to never talk in public if you want to make sure that no one knew you had braces for kids, teens, or adults.

With the advent of porcelain and ceramic brackets, though, you had a big change in how discreet your brackets were. No longer were they something that you had to work hard to hide, but rather, you only had to worry about hiding the long metal wire that goes around brackets. Having said that, no, you couldn’t replace that wire with anything ceramic or porcelain, and so far, they haven’t developed a bracket that has the same amount of ability to hold the tension required in order to allow the teeth to realign.

2. New metals

Now, another big upgrade is that they changed the metals that you use in the whole thing. Now, if you skip over the ceramic options, you can get newer metals, metals that are more long-lasting than the ones that came before. You see, for a long time, the problem that came up from time to time was that, well, the mouth just isn’t a hospitable place. When you leave your brackets in the mouth, they wear down. Now, on the other hand, these newer metals are more able to last long without having any issues with them falling apart or anything similar, and this is a good thing for you if you’ve got them in your mouth for a long time.

3. Invisalign

Invisalign is basically a rebuild of the idea, starting from the ground up. Invisalign is a series of retainers, basically, which are made of hard plastic, and when they are put in the mouth, they slowly realign the teeth in order to make them more and more straight, until you get done with the treatment plan and, hopefully, you end up with teeth that are straight and a smile that you can be proud to show off for the rest of your life. It also allows you to do the work of fixing it with a lot less hassle than you would think.

So, in the long term, braces have changed, and over time, they’re going to continue to change, and the reason that they’re changing is that we have new demands on what we’re doing and how we like to live.

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