ORTHODONTICS - BRACES

We offer the ultimate in orthodontic personal care and support. Over your treatment period, we will guide you through the process in a structured and care-focused manner. We take the time to explain the steps in a clear and succinct manner, and to talk to you about your at home care requirements. It's all part of our promise to provide a leading cosmetic dental and orthodontic service. Benefits include:

• A fully customised solution, tailored specifically to address your individual dental requirements.
• A treatment plan designed using leading computer-generated orthodontic technology. We can accurately predict your teeth's path to its final position, thereby shortening your treatment time and reducing unexpected tooth movements. Some of the technologies used in determining the appropriate treatment path include digital cephalometric analysis, digital scanning, computer tooth measuring and visual treatment objectives.
• Faster treatment is achieved by using braces that are customised for each individual. This includes (a) brackets specific to each tooth (b) custom welded bands (c) archwires selected specifically for your facial characteristics and required tooth movement patterns (d) long acting nickel-titanium springs and wires which extend the time between treatment visits.
• Greater comfort, as your braces and wires are customised to you, patients experience less wire changes, reduced pain, and irritation.
• Suitable for all ages including children, teens and adults.
• Ideal treatment of a wide range of conditions including: crowded teeth; widely spaced teeth; overbites, underbites, and open/closed bite conditions; and misaligned teeth.
  

Full term braces uses advanced orthodontic tools specifically developed to be customised to each patient, instead of a 'one size fits all' approach used in typical dental braces treatment. Since the braces have been specifically made for you, a faster and more effective treatment can be expected.

The difference with full term dental braces and short term dental braces (or “fast braces’) is that only part of the problem is treated. This is generally only offered as a possible solution to adult patients and is more an alternative to veneers than full braces.

Often times a patient’s bite can be far from ideal, but the only thing that bothers them is a few crooked front teeth.

So long as the patient fully understands the limitations of treatment, then short term dental braces may be an appropriate option for them. So instead of correcting the bite and aligning the teeth as with full term dental braces, just the front alignment is done therefore the treatment is completed faster and for a lesser cost. Again this is discussed with you at the pre-treatment consultation.

The short term dental braces process is essentially the same as our full term dental braces (see above).

• Following on your initial consultation, we will collect dental records (photographs, teeth scans, digital skull x-rays etc.) which will be used to plan your treatment.
• A full consultation is advised to run through detailed treatment options, times, fees and payment options. At this session we will discuss the approach we recommend, your treatment schedule, and likely outcomes. At the end of this session we can provide you with estimate costs for your full treatment.
• Once you have approved to proceed, we will arrange an initial appointment where we ascertain the size requirements for fitting your bands, brackets, and archwires. This appointment usually takes 30 mins.
• Your next appointment, approximately 2 weeks later, is for fitting your full term dental braces. This appointment usually takes 1 1/2 hours and you can watch a movie while it’s happening.
• Future appointments are then scheduled, approximately every six to eight weeks. At each of your regular appointments we review progress to date, fit new wires, and assess any other mechanics that need to be instigated. These appointments usually take 10– 50mins.
• Once you have completed wearing your braces we will fit you with your required retainer/s. These retainer/s often just need to be worn at night, to ensure you retain the position of your teeth.                   

Common Questions and Answers

Are you an orthodontist?

At Discover Dental we are not orthodontists, but highly skilled general dentists, professionally trained in the provision of orthodontic care. Dr Angela McKeefry (BDS) who does most of our orthodontics has over 12 years experience providing orthodontic care to patients in Wellington.  Because we are not orthodontists, we can provide a far greater range of care. This includes cosmetic tooth additions, the removal of any teeth needed for space to straighten the smile, and teeth cleaning which is very important when wearing dental braces. College age patients can have their routine teeth checks for free as part of the government Dental Benefit free scheme.