What Kids Should Know About Braces
If your child needs braces, they probably have a lot of questions and worried. Here is what kids should know about braces before heading to the orthodontist.
What Kids Should Know About Braces | Do Braces Interfere with Musical Instruments?
A lot of times our younger patients are concerned that the braces will affect either sports in which they participate or musical instruments they play. In fact, we rarely have issues with this. We always encourage our athletes to wear a mouth guard to protect their mouths and to protect against concussions. We rarely have any issues when they wear a well-fitting athletic mouth guard that’s made for orthodontics.
Musical instruments can cause a little irritation on the inside of the lips, particularly with brass instruments such as trumpets, trombones and things like that. The pressure of the lips can make them a little sore. Generally speaking, after a quick adjustment period, patients get used to it and rarely have any ongoing issues.
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What Kids Should Know About Braces | Does an Expander Hurt?
When I talk with kids about expanders, their first question to me is always, “Is this going to hurt?” My short answer is, “There might be a little discomfort the first couple of days, just as you get to use to the little bit of pressure that they put on your teeth, but I wouldn’t call it painful. I would just call it a little bit of pressure.” I always tell patients to take a little Tylenol or Advil. After the second day, it really is downhill from there. It gets very easy.
What Kids Should Know About Braces | Does Every Kid Get Braces?
One common question is, “Do you put braces on every kid you see at an early age?” The answer is no. Very often, what we do is start by trying to create room for teeth to be made straight and make the jaws the proper size and shape. We frequently start with an expander to make more room and make jaws the proper width. Then, we go into braces. Sometimes we do what we call “partial treatment,” using just upper and lower front braces for a short time. That’s just to align things into their proper positions and get things to fit appropriately with the upper and the lower. Then, we give kids a long break while we wait for the rest of the adult teeth to come in. It depends on the patient. Sometimes we just do expansion at a young age and sometimes we do expansion with partial braces.
If your child has any more questions or fear about getting braces, please call one of our 5 WNY orthodontic locations to get a free screening.
