Think you may need braces? Key things to look out for in your pearly white smile

Do you think you need braces?

For some people, it may be obvious to them that they would benefit from having braces fitted; perhaps there is an alignment issue that is driving them mad or maybe they feel they would be more confident if their teeth were a bit straighter.

If you attend your dental check-ups regularly, your dentist will probably inform you that you would benefit from having braces in cases of severe misalignment issues, but may not if they feel the only real benefit would be cosmetic.

In some situations, it may not be as black and white as that. Many dentists who fit braces in Cheltenham and other areas feel that more people would benefit from having braces to correct more subtle dental issues. There are many different kinds of aligners available today, so there has never been a better time to have braces in Gloucestershire than now.

Issues with biting and chewing food

Even if your molar teeth align perfectly, you may still have some difficulty biting into food due to misalignment with your front teeth.

While this may not seem like an obvious inconvenience available aligners in Cheltenham can help straighten your front teeth, strengthening your bite and allowing you to bite into harder foods with more confidence.

Speech issues

Commonly seen dental issues like protrusion, crowding and malocclusions can impact on your speech.

As the position of the teeth in the mouth impacts on how much the tongue can move when pronouncing words, if you have spaced teeth or misaligned teeth, this can lead to speech disorders, such as lisp. Indeed, research has found that individuals who have malocclusions or crowding of the teeth statistically have a harder time pronouncing consonants, particularly the letters ‘s’ and ‘z’. If this sounds familiar, it may be time to see a dentist to discuss if tooth alignment is the underlying problem.

Frequent biting of inner cheek

It happens to the best of us but can be very painful; if you are regularly biting the inside of your cheeks or your tongue, this could indicate a misalignment of your front teeth or protrusion of your molars.

Once again, this may not seem like a significant issue, but frequent biting of the tongue or inner cheeks can lead to scarring and, as our mouths are full of bacteria, it could even lead to infections.

 Jaw pain

Does your jaw ache in the mornings? Does it click for no reason?

If so, this could indicate jaw grinding or clenching, tell-tale signs of temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJ); a disorder in which your lower jaw is not ‘sitting’ properly, causing you to grind your teeth and jaws together in the night.

Braces can correct the misalignment that is often associated with the discomfort of TMJ, as correctly aligned teeth are harder to grind as effectively, thus minimizing the pain and movement associated with this condition.