The placement of bands and brackets on your teeth does not hurt. Once your braces are placed and connected with the archwires, you may feel some tenderness or soreness of your teeth for a few days. Your lips and cheeks may also need one to two weeks to adjust to the braces on your teeth. After most adjustment visits, patients do not feel any soreness at all! We often remind our patients, “It does not have to hurt to work!”

Removing teeth is sometimes required to achieve the best orthodontic result. Straight teeth and a balanced facial profile are the goal of orthodontics. At times, the jaws do not have enough room to accommodate all the teeth and trying to fit them all can be more detrimental than beneficial and the result of orthodontic treatment will not be as good. However, because new technology has provided advanced orthodontic procedures, removing teeth is not always necessary for orthodontic treatment.

Yes. Once treatment begins, we will go over instructions and provide a comprehensive list of foods to avoid. Some of those foods include: ice, hard candy, raw vegetables and all sticky foods (i.e. caramel and taffy). You can avoid most emergency appointments to repair broken or damaged braces by carefully following our instructions.

Many of our patients are adults. In fact, 25 percent of all orthodontic patients are adults. Orthodontic treatment can be successful at any age. Health, happiness and self-esteem are vitally important to adults. No patient is “too old” to wear braces!