A orthodontic treatment to align a patient's teeth, achieving functional chewing and outstanding aesthetics, requires the patient to wear brackets or clear aligners for a period of time, something that often stops a person from deciding to improve their smile and occlusion for fear of lengthy treatment.
Aware of this, orthodontists have been working with the dental industry for many years to develop products to speed up treatment, including self-ligating brackets.
What is a self-ligating bracket?
Traditional brackets hold the 'arch' or 'wire' in place with small rubber bands, which the patient sometimes requests to be coloured to brighten their smile.
These 'rubbers' have several limitations:
- After a few hours of contact with saliva, they degrade hydrolytically and lose some of their strength, so that the archwire does not fully enter the bracket slot.
- They may turn a darker colour, especially in patients who smoke or consume large amounts of wine and/or coffee.
- By holding the archwire or wire in the bracket slot, they rub against the bracket, creating friction that prevents the archwire from sliding along the bracket.
In comparison, self-ligating brackets offer the following advantages:
- Always keep the original colour
- They maintain the ideal force applied to the arc and... the number of appointments!
- They reduce friction and... treatment time!
In this way, self-ligating brackets, among which we can find some such as the SmartClip o Clarity SLboth produced by the manufacturer 3M, allow treatment times to be reduced in the initial phase of alignment. In addition, as it is not necessary to replace the elastics, the orthodontist can suggest to the patient that visits to the clinic be made every 8 or 10 weeks, instead of every 4 weeks, as has traditionally been done with elastomer-bonded brackets.
So, you know, if you are thinking about a orthodontic treatment in the Murcia regionContact an experienced professional and discuss your desire to use self-ligating brackets to reduce treatment time as much as possible, which in most cases will be around 18 months with these techniques.