Orthodontic treatment offers many benefits, including giving you straighter teeth for a more beautiful smile that will make you feel more confident. However, beyond straighter teeth, orthodontic treatment works to improve the relationship between the upper and lower arch in your mouth, ensuring that your teeth can come together properly. In fact, when Dr. Laster creates a unique treatment plan for you, he will evaluate not only the position of your teeth, but also the size of your jaw and additional factors.
Many patients are surprised to find out that braces don’t just change their smile, they can affect the appearance of the face, too. While you have probably thought about how your smile will change with straighter teeth, here’s a closer look at how your face may change with orthodontic treatment, too.
Do Braces Change Your Face?
Yes, braces have the potential to change your face, and for the better! When you undergo orthodontic treatment, you will often notice changes to your facial structure. There’s nothing to worry about, though. These changes are very positive. Braces fix a variety of issues that can give your jawline and mouth a more attractive look.
Braces help fix alignment issues like an overbite, underbite, or crossbite. These alignment problems can keep upper and lower teeth from meeting comfortably. Treating these issues may include moving the upper jaw backward or forward so teeth meet, and moving the jaw does affect the way your face appears. This provides you with a more symmetrical, natural look to the mouth and jawline.
In milder cases, even if you don’t notice a big change to your face, your smile may be the biggest thing you notice after orthodontic treatment. Straighter teeth can make you more comfortable showing off your pearly whites, and flashing a big grin completely changes the way you look.
How Do Braces Change Your Face?
So how do braces change your face? They do so by addressing specific types of bite problems that have a significant impact on an individual’s appearance when corrected, including:
- Underbite – When the upper teeth are too far back or your lower teeth are too far forward, this is known as an underbite. This leaves you with an unbalanced facial appearance and may even speed up aging, making you look old beyond your years. Braces help move either the lower or upper teeth to correct the underbite. Once treatment is complete, the jaw will no longer jut out, allowing for a soft, more natural appearance.
- Overbite – Overbites occur when the upper teeth are too far forward over your lower teeth. Braces are often used to correct an overbite because they are able to shift your upper teeth backward into the correct position. Having an overbite may make you appear like you have no chin, but once the overbite is corrected, it establishes a stronger jawline giving your face a more balanced look.
- Open Bite – Open bites occur when your front lower and upper teeth slant outward and they don’t touch when you’re biting down. This often leads to speech problems like lisps and biting and chewing difficulties. Pacifier use and thumb-sucking are the two main causes of an open bite. Braces help correct the lower and upper teeth, pulling the teeth into a more vertical alignment so they’re not bucked.
Visit Dr. Laster
At Laster Orthodontics, we use the latest technology to ensure we are able to offer you the best, customized treatment and allow you to see what your teeth will look like once treatment is completed. The ability to digitally scan teeth with the iTero Scanner ensures we get the most accurate impressions of your teeth, and those impressions are loaded into a simulator that creates an accurate mouth model. This mouth model can be altered and adjusted based upon your upcoming treatment plan so Dr. Laster is able to let you see what your smile and face will look like during and after your treatment.
Are you interested in learning how braces or other available orthodontic treatments can change your smile and your face? Contact us today to schedule your free consultation. We can’t wait to work with you to help you move towards a more beautiful smile.
At Laster Orthodontics, we help families develop healthy, life-changing smiles using customized treatments, cutting-edge technologies, and caring relationships. Our individualized treatment plans help our patients achieve their perfect smile in the quickest, most painless way possible by utilizing a wide range of options from traditional braces to propel accelerated treatment to Dr. Laster’s in-house aligner program, Laster Perfect Smile. With three locations throughout the Triangle Area, we create life-changing smiles every day.
