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We tend to think that orthodontics is primarily a problem with positions of teeth. But, the reality is that many of our patients also have present a skeletal problem that causes the teeth not to fit.
When we say a skeletal problem, that could mean many, many things. You could have more growth in the upper jaw, or more growth in the lower jaw. Even side to side, some people have more growth on one side and less growth on the other, which can cause asymmetry. Asymmetry means that if you look directly at the face, you would notice that the upper or lower jaw may be off to one side, and not perfectly symmetrical.
We can help these problems to a great degree. We can't actually make them go away completely, but we have to take the skeletal arrangement of each patient into consideration on making their treatment plan. We look at patients as a whole. We need to find out what their health background has been. We will ask you some medical questions when you come in and make sure that we know what we're dealing with, and we are not trying to correct something that is caused by a systemic problem that needs help elsewhere.
One that is fairly common, is that we may see an individual whose upper jaw is very narrow. When we see this with young patients, we can improve upon that by doing a process that we call palatal expansion, and that would be to place an appliance that actually moved the bones of the upper jaw apart and widen the upper jaw. We would then hold that position while new bone grew in the areas between the plates of bone and the upper jaw. This is a fairly common procedure, and it is best done for a young patient, maybe at the age of eight to ten.
Another skeletal problem that people refer to is an underbite. Something that appears where the lower jaw is forward of the upper jaw. Many times, that problem, is really not what you think it is. It can be that the upper jaw has not grown properly and it makes the lower jaw look as though it is protruding or forward of the upper jaw. So, in that case you have to determine truly where the skeletal or growth problem is. Sometimes there are true enlargements of the lower jaw. Fortunately they are more rare than people realize. The lower jaw is the last bone in the body that will stop growing. So you can get growth in the lower jaw that will occur much later in life. There can be hormonal problems, extra growth hormone from pituitary gland enlargements, things of that nature, that infuse growth hormone into our bodies and it can affect the lower jaw as an adult.
Video Produced By: Definitive Medical Marketing | www.definitivemedicalmarketing.com
22 авг 2024