Joint treatment with Traditional Orthodontics for great results
When we do orthodontics, it’s basically causing the teeth to move through the bone into a better position. Some patients, on the other hand, require dentofacial orthopedics where we’re actually impacting the skeleton. So we do that in three major ways.
We can use an expanding appliance to make the upper jaw wider. That helps correct cross bites and issues like that, but it also gives more space for the tongue as a patient gets older. You know, if you have a wider car, you basically have to have a wider garage.
And so that actually helps with breathing and proper tongue posture over time, keeping your tongue on the roof of your mouth, which is very important for overall health. What we also do is called a Herbst appliance in patients that need it. That’s for people that have large class two malocclusions.
These work best in a growing patient. And so we can take advantage of the remaining growth potential in a patient like that. We’re basically turbocharging jaw growth forward in order to go from a large class two to a class one occlusion.
And then on the other hand, when patients are developing class three malocclusions where their lower jaw is biting too far forward, we can use what’s called a chin cup appliance, which helps the, it’s the opposite. We’re helping the upper jaw come forward to help correct those issues. So dental facial orthopedics is basically, it goes along with orthodontics because we do that either after dental facial orthopedics, or at the same time, we’re involving the skeleton.
We’re involving the basis of the jaws to help us achieve the proper bite and occlusion.