ORTHODONTIC WARNING SIGNS that indicate your child should have an Orthodontic exam:
- Crowding, misplaced or blocked out teeth.
- Protruding teeth.
- Teeth that meet in an abnormal manner or don’t meet at all.
- Jaws protrude or retrude.
- Early or late loss of teeth.
- Difficulty in chewing or biting.
- Mouth breathing
- Finger sucking or oral habits.
- Facial imbalance.
- Speech Difficulty.
- Biting cheek or into the roof of the mouth.
- Jaws that shift or make sounds.
- Grinding or clenching of the teeth.
INTERCEPTIVE TREATMENT (early intervention which takes advantage of facial growth and tooth eruption) IS BENEFICIAL IN:
- Lessening the severity of a problem, making the completion of treatment at a later age less time consuming and less expensive.
- Avoiding the need to extract permanent teeth in the future.
- Reducing or eliminating the need for future jaw or facial surgery.
- Avoiding fracture or loss of protruding teeth due to accident.
- Eliminating adverse habits such as thumb-finger sucking.
- Correcting early alignment of teeth.
- Correcting crossbite, tooth grinding, tooth interference and lower jaw displacement.
- Coordinating the extraction of primary (baby) teeth with the family dentist and allowing for proper eruption of permanent teeth.
- Enhancing proper speech development.
- Improving self-image.
