Halloween always makes me think of ghosts and goblins, trick-or-treat, spooky movies, and getting remnants of a Snickers® Bar lodged in my teeth…
Have you ever noticed it’s hard to keep certain teeth clean? Do you have troublesome spots that always build tartar no matter what you do? Do you feel like you keep getting the same lecture from our smiling hygienists, Cortney, Rachel and Rhonda? Do your problem zones happen to have some crowding, overlapping or general wonkiness going on?
If your answer is yes, it’s totally possible that you ARE doing all that you can to keep your pearly whites tartar-free. The fact is, crowded teeth will always build up more tartar. When teeth don’t quite fit the alignment of your jaw, they create perfect little pockets for things like food, bacteria, or an entire ham sandwich to hang out in, creating that oh-so-annoying build up. Fast forward to your next cleaning visit; another lecture from the “Girls of Cleanliness” and you’re left wondering, “What more can I do?”
Our mouths and teeth are designed to be…wait for it… self-cleansing. How can that be?Product marketing geniuses spend billions of dollars a year advertising oral hygiene products. If they were self-cleansing, we wouldn’t need to brush, floss or use that eye-watering, gum-stinging, make-fire-shoot-out-of-your-ears-and-nose product called Listerine®. Well, we can blame our tartar problems on a whole slew of things: misalignment, genetics, bacteria, and diet, just to name a few. Our own systems can only handle so much. Orthodontics (yep I mean braces) is a really good way to take one of these problems out of the equation. By aligning, de-rotating and leveling teeth, we can make them more self-cleansing and more easily accessible for things like tooth brushes and floss. We also know that good alignment cuts down on long term wear that can lead to short, squat looking teeth as we get older. But REALLY? Who wants to wear wires and brackets?? Not me. I’ve done it twice and I’m over it. Sigh. If only there was another way!
