Early Treatment (Interventional and myofunctional orthodontics- Myobrace)
Modern Orthodontics is now about much more than just crooked teeth. With Myofunctional Orthodontics we focus on the factors that cause crooked teeth. The goal is to eliminate the cause at a young age and minimised future treatments like braces. In many cases braces may no longer be called for.
One of the major factors that cause crooked teeth are undesirable habits and dysfunctional muscle function. We divide these factors into four groups
Breathing Dysfunction (sleep disorder breather eg. snoring in children)
Swallowing Dysfunction (excessive muscle activation during swallowing eg. tongue thrust)
Speaking Dysfunction (unable to make certain sounds e.g. a tongue tie creating a lisp)
Bad Habits (thumb sucking)
These dysfunctions puts forces on teeth that should not be there. Much like the way braces place a force on a tooth to elicit movement.
A simple explanation is to consider the lips and cheeks as a constant force pushing inwards and the tongue as a constant force pushing outwards on the teeth. In a case such as a mouth breather the child will have their tongue on top of their teeth and therefore no longer pushes out. The lips and cheeks still push inwards. The teeth will then move inwards as the forces are not balanced. This makes the mouth smaller and the result is inadequate room for all the adult teeth.
Myofunctional Orthodontics work to remove dysfunction and balance the forces on not just the teeth but the bones of the face. With balanced forces the face will develop like it was supposed to a create beautiful, wide smiles and well developed facial bones.
We can provide orthodontic evaluations for children as young as age six or seven and we may suggest this option if we feel it will be beneficial for your child. There are a number of orthodontic appliances that can be used during early treatment and which can be useful for correcting problems caused by oral habits, creating sufficient room so their adult teeth can erupt normally. This helps to reduce or eliminate the need for tooth extractions in preparation for orthodontic treatment.
