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APPLIANCES
The primary goal for early appliance
therapy, is to facilitate normal growth. It is not meant to
avoid orthodontics later, or even to correct rotated teeth.
It's aim is for growth modification. Here are some examples of
appliances:
Space maintainers: This is used
when there is early loss of primary teeth. An appliance
is place to hold the space of the missing tooth, so that the
permanent tooth will have space to erupt in. If this is not
properly done, the existing tooth will migrate into the available
space, hence blocking the new incoming adult tooth. Of course
the best space maintainer is the preservation of the primary tooth,
what we call a natural space maintainer. Unfortunately, badly
broken down teeth don't usually have that option.
There are both fix (cemented in place), or
removable (retainers) space maintainers. Ask Dr. Thoa which
one would be best for your child.
Expanders: Thumb, finger, or
pacifier habits can develop something called a cross-bite or an
open-bite. A cross-bite can occur in the front teeth or in the
back teeth. Look below for what a back cross-bite would look
like:
Due to either prolong thumb sucking,
pacifier use, or mouth breathing, your child can develop what we
call a cross-bite, ...like this child below.
At our office, we are able to correct
this with an appliance...this is what we were able to do for that
same patient above after only 4 months!
We may
choose not to correct a front cross-bite, because they will loose
those teeth first, and may need correction of the permanent teeth.
We will correct back cross-bite because this can effect the entire
growth of your child's jaw, and prevent them from growing
symmetrically.
Tongue
Crib: Open-bites are when the front teeth don't come
together. This one is corrected with a tongue-crib. This
is an appliance that keeps their thumb out of their mouth, or their
tongue from coming forward. In this way, there body is allowed
to naturally close the teeth together without the interference of
the thumb, finger, pacifier or tongue.
But don't
let all this put you to sleep.
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