Did you know that over four million individuals wear braces in America? With so many cases, you may be considering wearing braces to treat dental imperfections. Maintaining oral health and hygiene is crucial as it affects not only your appearance but also your ability to chew.

Having problems biting is also known as a malocclusion that occurs due to crowded, crooked, or misaligned teeth. Generally, dental health problems are the result of:

  • Bad Habits: sucking thumb, biting nails, and breathing from the mouth can badly affect your teeth.
  • Problematic Baby Teeth: losing them too early or late can result in misaligned teeth
  • Injury: serious accidents can knock off your teeth, causing them to shift from their original position
  • Genetics: you can even inherit teeth alignment and jaw size from your parents

Who Needs Braces?

Dental health problems that can be treated through braces include:

  • Crowded teeth: It comprises of turns, overlapped, and crooked teeth that can affect your bite. Usually, your genes play a predominant role in crowded teeth, but it can also be a result of thumb sucking and nail-biting
  • Gaps: when there is too much space in between your teeth because of your genetic predisposition
  • Crossbite: when the top row of teeth doesn’t align with the bottom jaw
  • Open bite: when the top and bottom front teeth do not touch each other and put pressure on the one at the back (this also causes chewing difficulty as individuals to find it hard to bite properly)
  • Overjet: when the upper teeth stick out farther from the lower ones. Typically, it happens due to consistent thumb sucking
  • All-gums: when the upper jaw is large, or the upper lip is too thin; it exposes too much of gum tissues

How Can Braces Help You?

Straightening your teeth improves your oral health, boosts your confidence, and gives you a healthy smile. Meanwhile, several other reasons to treat your dental health problems are:

Tooth Decay:

Crowded teeth or ones with gaps are more prone to cavities and gum diseases as they are harder to clean. Moreover, food particles and plaque gets trapped, leading to tooth decay and propagation of bacterial infection. Over time, you can lose your teeth that require costly dental treatments.

Inability to Chew Properly:

Misaligned teeth can hinder basic functions such as biting and chewing. It also wears off the teeth enamel and puts excess pressure on the jawbones. Thus, it increases the likelihood of gum diseases and jaw problems.

Reduces Muscle Tension and Neck Pain

Excessive stress on the bones while chewing increases muscle tension and sore joints. It also leads to constant headaches and pain in the neck.

Mitigate the Risk of Chipped or Broken Teeth

Stuck out or crowded teeth are more at a greater risk of chipping and cracks. Mending broken teeth can lead to expensive orthodontic surgeries and treatment.

On the downside, traditional braces can raise your chances of developing gum diseases as it increases the likelihood of plaque buildup.  Therefore, it is imperative to learn proper cleaning and maintenance of your teeth from a periodontist.