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An active appliance is a device used to apply forces to the teeth to change the relationship of the teeth.
a.)Removable active appliances
* Expansion and Labial Segment Alignment Appliance (ELSAA)
b.) Fixed active appliances
* Pin and Tube Appliances
* Ribbon Arch Appliances
* Begg Lightwire Appliances
* Edgewise Appliances
* Pre-adjusted Edgwise Appliances
* Self-ligating Edgewise Appliances
* Bi Helix
* Tri Helix
* Quad Helix
* Rapid Maxillary Expansion Appliance (RPE)
(Source:Wikipedia)
Posted By editor
Date: February 10th, 2009
One of the major factors that cause tooth decay is the over consumption of sugar. This is especially evident in children who loose their milk teeth early due to eating too much sweets. It’s okay (although still ugly) to have your kids’ milk teeth ruined as the permanent set replace them anyway. But once you have your permanent teeth, the damage from sugary sweet foods will also make the damage to your pearly whites permanent.
When you eat sugary foods or drink sodas frequently throughout the day, the enamel that protects your teeth is constantly exposed to acids. Hard candies, cough drops, and breath mints that contain sugar are especially harmful because they dissolve slowly in your mouth. Many experts suggest that you take a 3-hour break between eating foods containing sugar.
Read the whole article about tooth care here.
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As parents, we tend to start kids early on teeth care, sometimes too much leading to orthodontic problems in later life. Crowding, impacted teeth and other alignment problems due to so healthy a set of baby teeth, the permanent teeth cannot bud out and often result in more costs to correct them. Though good, it is normal for kids to lose teeth and this gives way to stronger adult permanent teeth which is part of the process.
The uncontrollable biting and gnawing, babies go through as their baby teeth come out is sign that teeth problems can be indeed very painful for such a small body. Take care of your child’s teeth but not too much for you may have to shell out a lot of cash to correct problems that may result from such care. Too much care often results from parents who have had little or no care try to help kids maintain their healthy set of teeth for the future avoiding problems they have had when they were young.
Posted By editor
Date: December 15th, 2008
Many suffer from discomfort and even pain in the jaw which may be attributed to too good your care for your teeth. Teeth as we know come first at wisdom teeth or baby teeth which eventually fall out giving way to our permanent set of teeth that is designed to last us our lifetime. But the fast-paced lifestyle of today along with the many stuff we call junk food that we all crave for, these teeth wear out prematurely, sometimes too early.
Back to the wisdom tooth, there comes a time in a child’s life (normally as we enter adolescence) when the permanent teeth have to come out and perfect baby teeth may impede the process resulting in impacted tooth. Sadly, this is only visible with x-ray’s which can give a clear view of the tooth that may even be growing horizontally causing pain as it pushes against the roots and nerves of the perfect baby teeth. It can be corrected easily but it may involve the extraction of some of the baby teeth to give the permanent teeth room to grow into taking away the pressure on the nerves thus the pain.
Posted By Administrator
Date: November 29th, 2008
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It is only your dentist or orthodontist who can determine if you need orthodontic treatment through a series of medical, dental and clinical examinations, plaster model of your teeth, special x-rays and photographs. However, there are signs you can watch out for that will tell you that you might need orthodontic treatment. One is an overbite, or popularly known as “buck teeth”, where your upper front teeth stick out over the lower teeth or an under bite also known as a “bulldog” appearance where the lower teeth are too far forward or the upper teeth too far back. Another sign is if you have a cross bite, a condition when the upper teeth do not come down slightly in front of the lower teeth in a normal bite.
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The rate of toothless has declined over recent decades. A viable option for any adult is an orthodontic treatment. It is well recognized that orthodontic problems become worse when left untreated.
For the most part, our great grandparents lost their teeth around age of 40. Today the teenagers have the chance to keep their teeth for another 65 years. This is because a major change in dental healthcare has evolved.
Crowded teeth are hard to clean and may contribute to tooth decay, gum disease and even tooth loss. Bad bites can also result in abnormal wearing of tooth surfaces and difficulty in chewing which damages the supporting bone and gum tissue. Poorly aligned teeth can contribute to pain in the jaw joints. Make sure that your teeth are in good alignment and well maintained will increase the potential of keeping your teeth in your adult years.
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Another alternative to typical metal braces is what is now known as Invisalign. Both orthodontists and dentists around the world are now using and introducing this device to patients. Unlike the traditional type of braces, Invisalign are metal free and uses see through aligners which makes them almost invisible. Being difficult to notice, people also call them as the revolutionary invisible brace.
This type of treatment implements the latest computer technique in shaping the brace. It uses a three dimensional modeling system to make sure that the device is well fitted to the wearer. After some months, the result will be a better and more confident smile.
It takes some stages to create this device to a patient. First stage is the evaluation of your smile and teeth positioning with your dentist. A mould of your teeth will be taken as well as some photographs of your teeth and smile in several angles. Second stage is the creation of you the 3D digital display of your teeth. This takes place in a laboratory with the use of a CT scan. The next stage is by knowing the movement of your teeth. This is created using registered software allowing the dentist to see a simulation from the current placement of your teeth to the aspired position. This simulation will now serve as the foundation to design your Invisalign. The final product and the simulation are then sent to the dentist. The 3D simulation allows the patient to see the anticipated movement of the teeth during the procedure.
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Also known as dentofacial orthopaedic appliances, these appliances utilize the muscle action of the patient to produce orthodontic or orthopaedic forces. Various functional appliances have been described.
a.) Removable functional appliances
* Andresen Appliance
* Bionator. Bionators initially look like a sort of combined upper and lower Hawley retainer, but do not fasten to the teeth and are not used for post-brace removal treatment. Bionators are held in the mouth within the space that the teeth surround when biting. They are used to expand the palate and create space for incoming teeth.
* Biobloc. Biobloc is an appliance used to posture forward the lower jaw.
* Clark Twin Block. This appliance incorporates the use of upper and lower bite blocks to position the mandible forward for skeletal Class II correction. The appliance was first developed by Scottish Orthodontist William Clark and Orthodontic Technician James Watt in 1977. The Twin Block has become the most popular functional appliance in use in the United Kingdom and is gaining popularity across Europe and the USA.
* Bass Dynamax. This appliance is similar in principle to the Twin Block. It is based around a prefabricated modular spring, built into a maxillary (upper)occlusal splint. Two integral vertical springs make contact with a fixed lingual arch or removable lower appliance to posture the mandible (lower jaw) forward for skeletal Class II correction. This appliance was developed by London Orthodontist Neville Bass in the early twenty-first century.
* Medium Opening Activator
* Orthodontic Headgear. This is a type of appliance attached to dental braces that aids in correcting more severe bite problems.
(Source:Wikipedia)
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One of the common situation for orthodontic treatment is due to the overcrowding of teeth.
ANTEROPROSTERIOR DISCREPANCIES
These are deviations between the teeth located in the upper jaw, with those of the lower jaw in the anteroprosterior direction. Example of this is when the upper teeth is far forward in relation to the lower teeth.
CROWDING OF TEETH
In this kind of situation, there is not enough room for the normal number of adult teeth to grow into. Sometimes, to solve this problem, extraction of teeth is needed in order to make room for the remaining teeth to grow into.
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Not everyone is gifted with a perfect smile and a perfect bite. Even way back in history, irregular position of the teeth has been a problem to some. That is why there is orthodontics.
Orthodontics deals with the treatment of improper bites, which are caused by irregularity of the tooth or disproportionate jaw relationships. Sometimes, it is caused by both.The treatment can be carried out for improvement of the patient’s teeth or even for cosmetic reasons.
In 1850, Dr. Norman Kingsley was the first dentist to use extraoral force to correct the teeth which are protruding. However, very few of the people who lived in this era had a complete set of teeth.