Auxiliary Appliances and Procedures
The hardware used to straighten your teeth is known as an "appliance." Appliances are specially tailored to your mouth and guide your teeth, muscles, jaw joints and bones into proper position. Dingus Orthodontics offers a variety of appliances to meet your dental needs including:
- Braces – The metal or ceramic brackets that are placed on your teeth to move them.
- Headgear – Used to correct overbites, by moving the upper jaw back while the lower jaw continues to grow forward.
- Rapid Palatal Expander – Used to widen the upper jaw in order to make room for crowed teeth.
- Lip Bumper – Used to move the lower molar teeth back in order to create more room for crowed teeth.
- Facemask – Used to correct underbites, by moving the upper jaw forward, while limiting the lower jaw growth.
- Functional appliance – stimulates jaw growth
- Interproximal Recountouring – a procedure in which a small amount of tooth structure is removed from around the teeth, in order to improve the alignment, esthetics and shape of teeth. This procedure can correct cracked, chipped, crowded and misaligned teeth. In many cases, interproximal recontouring can eliminate the need for other costly dental procedures.
When your teeth have reached the proper position and alignment, your braces or other appliances are removed. To keep your smile looking great, we will fit you with a retainer. A retainer is usually worn at night and helps keep your teeth from shifting. It’s important to wear your retainer when recommend and take good care of it by washing it in warm water, keeping it out of the sun to avoid meltdown, removing it while eating or drinking and storing it in the case when removed.
