Traditional braces - friend's glad she never wore them

I went to dinner at a friend's place last night and we started talking about how much her crooked teeth bothered her. I started talking about what I've read lately, that you shouldn't extract and/or retract teeth in orthodontics because it can damage the profile, the bite, the position of the tongue and the position of the jaw joint (TMJ) but that this is still done in many cases. She was shocked and said, "Are you SERIOUS?" I told her about Weston A. Price and how he found the reason for crooked teeth and that traditional orthodontics don't take care of the real problem and can make everything worse.

Then I told her that you will usually need bonded retainers on the back of the teeth for the rest of your life to keep them from shifting since the result is so unstable. "Are you SERIOUS?" she said again. She couldn't let the topic go. The more I told her the happier she was that she had never worn (traditional) braces.

Later we started talking about children and that they often wait until they are fully grown here in Sweden which is the wrong thing to do. She had relatives that had to wear braces and pull out an eye tooth (a canine tooth coming in in the roof of the mouth) and when I told her that kind of scenario can often be avoided if you guide the growth of the jaws at an early age she was really surprised that more people aren't aware of this.

We then started measuring each other's intercanine width and laughed like little girls. "Ok, let's measure yours, oh my, your upper jaw is too small!" "Are you supposed to have that big of a jaw, that's huge!" (The norm is 40 mm for both men and women.) We measured the distance between the nose and the front teeth (according to Dr. Hang and Orthotropics practitioners). Her distance was too big but mine was of course bigger. We laughed again. But then we got serious once more. We discussed how I'm going to reach out to people? I don't know if most people wouldn't care about their health to get straight teeth but that they might not disregard the fact that these retraction methods cause double chin, bigger nose, damaged profile and treatment relapse? I gave her some links for further research.

Imagine if this could have been avoided at an early stage. I'm sure this person would've been thrilled.

Types of orthodontic appliances

I have read more about orthodontics than is healthy for the brain. Slowly an opinion began to take shape, an opinion that is based on something I've felt all along: "Why only consider the teeth, that they need to be straight, if they don't fit the face, if the face loses its shape, if the profile is damaged?" And: "Why defy the body, nature itself, when it's the most brilliant machine that exists? Why torture people for years with uncomfortable and sometimes horrible appliances?"

These thoughts make me very upset, especially at this age because I've started thinking, "What if I get kids, how do I deal with these things? I can't make it go through just anything." But now I know everything worth knowing about new findings and that it doesn't have to be this way. You don't need to wear the worst appliances available for it to work. The less bulky ones usually work better because they take advantage of the body. It really makes a lot of sense! The body wants to change, to correct itself, but only if it's done in the right way. Furthermore, you don't have to choose between straight teeth and face/function because the good techniques improve the facial appearance and the mouth!

ALF or RPE - which would you prefer? Do you believe me when I tell you that the thin, discreet thing to the left solves more problems?

First and foremost, to not take the entire head and the shape of the jaws into account is often pointless. That's not the way to solve a problem. For years I have been telling myself, "Wow, people who used to wear braces sure have flat faces! And narrow smiles!" and now I realize that I wasn't the only one having these thoughts even though for the longest time I thought I was.

Though bothering too much about the cosmetic part isn't necessary because it comes as a bonus along with all the other advantages with functional orthodontics (functional appliances and braces for adults) and orthotropics (facial growth guidance for kids). TMJ problems, headaches, neck pain and sleep apnea are all serious things, (in my opinion far more serious than wearing out a tooth or two which are often the argument for orthodontic treatment). They are all things you want to avoid. The aesthetic part is related to them though since we humans tend to be able to judge from the appearance of a person if they are healthy or not. Someone who has their chin very close to their neck probably has breathing difficulties. To make the mouth smaller and pushing everything backwards doesn't solve any problems, it makes everything worse.

To guide the growth of the face isn't synonymous with torturing people. In most cases there is no retraction involved. The facial profile should be convex. It improves the airway (trust me, I know all too well what it's like not to be able to breathe properly). The whole purpose is to help the body become as it would have been had it grown correctly.

If I had to make a choice on my child's behalf between crooked teeth or moving everything backwards I would pick crooked teeth any day. As far as I'm concerned, health and a beautiful face are more important than straight teeth. Luckily there are methods where you don't have to choose. Sadly, they're not very commonly used.

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