Orthodontics Are Not Just for Kids

There is no shortage of restaurants in Plano City, Texas. You have the famous Densetsu Japanese Restaurant at West Spring Creek Parkway if you’re into Asian cuisine. You can also visit Whisky Cake Kitchen and Bar at the Dallas Parkway, or the Lockhart Smokehouse.

Food is best enjoyed with a good set of teeth, and the services of a Plano orthodontist can help you with that. It’s not true that only kids can enjoy the services of these specialists.

Harvard points out that, according to data held by the American Association of Orthodontics, there are people who are over 18 years old who still opt to get braces and other similar dental appliances. 

These people make up 1/5th of the total number of orthodontic patients throughout the United States, so it’s not a surprise if anyone in the nearly 300,000 residents of Plano will want to get a brace from an orthodontist.

Why You Would Need Orthodontic Treatment

You may have lived a majority of your adult life with misaligned teeth. However, that does not mean that it is okay, even if you have learned to adjust to a poor bite.

The condition is known as malocclusion. Ideally, the grooves of the rear teeth — the molars — should align top to bottom. This is how the mouth tears apart food by grinding them between the two rear molars on the left and right side of the jaws.

In malocclusion, however, the molars do not meet in the middle. This means that the bite is abnormal. As a result, the mouth gives in a bit more effort into biting than usual. That can cause stress on the muscles and bones of the jaws and can lead to problems later on.

Hereditary factors can cause malocclusion. These cause the upper and lower jaws to be different in size. In other cases, it can be a result of habits acquired from infancy until early childhood.

For instance, not being weaned at the right time from the feeding bottle can cause this condition, as well as thumb sucking.

Oral Health Problems that Can Result from Malocclusion

Having misaligned can cause quite a few oral health problems if it’s left unaddressed. These include:

  1. Plaque and tooth decay

Because they do not align correctly, some food items could be pushed to the back of the mouth. That makes them hard to reach during brushing and flossing. Over time, they could cause cavities and tooth decay.

  1. Speech problems

Maloccluded teeth can also cause problems in speaking, resulting in communication problems. It would take a lot of effort to form words correctly and will stress the mouth muscles excessively.

2. Jaw pain

As mentioned earlier, the jaws will have difficulty in doing the movements necessary for grinding the food the person eats. Over time, a person will develop chronic mandibular pain.

3. Poor digestion

The body digests food properly when they are broken into the right sizes or portions. However, because a person is having trouble chewing the food, they, more often than not, swallow food at larger tidbits. The stomach will have trouble breaking that down into enzymes in the process.

Thus, it’s incorrect to think that, at your age, you do not have to avail of the services of a Plano orthodontist. The treatment takes more time with adults than with children. However, that does not mean it would not be as effective in your case as it is with kids.