Adults

What is genuinely different

• No growth to use. A skeletal discrepancy in an adult is either camouflaged by moving teeth, addressed with anchorage devices, or corrected surgically. It cannot be grown out of.
• Slower movement. Bone turnover declines with age. Adult cases commonly run somewhat longer than the equivalent case in a fifteen-year-old.
• Existing dental work. Crowns, bridges, implants and large fillings change what can be bonded and how teeth respond. An implant does not move at all, so it becomes a fixed point the plan has to work around.
• Gum and bone condition. Any active periodontal disease is treated and stabilised before orthodontics starts. Moving teeth through inflamed tissue causes real harm; moving them through healthy tissue with reduced bone support is often fine with appropriate care.
• Worn or chipped teeth. Years of an uneven bite leave marks. Orthodontics is frequently the first stage of a plan that finishes with your general dentist or a prosthodontist restoring shape and length.

Why adults come in

Lower front crowding that has slowly worsened. A bite that has always been uncomfortable. Teeth drifting into a space where a molar was lost years ago. Preparation for a crown, bridge or implant that needs the space opened or the roots uprighted first. Relapse after childhood braces. And appearance, which is a perfectly legitimate reason on its own.

Bite symptoms and jaw pain

Where jaw discomfort is related to how the teeth meet, orthodontic correction can improve the signs and symptoms, and we see that in practice. It is not a universal cure for jaw pain — the temporomandibular joints are complicated and many contributors are not dental — but the position that orthodontics never helps is equally wrong. If jaw pain is part of why you are here, say so at the examination so it is assessed properly rather than assumed either way.

Appliance choice

Adults choose ceramic more often than any other option, and a meaningful number choose metal once they learn treatment is short. Lingual braces exist for patients who cannot show appliances at all. Clear aligners suit many adult cases well and are covered at mapleridgeorthodontist.com; which of the two can actually finish your bite is a question for the examination.