Author: Aura Dental

You probably know all about how important it is to brush your teeth at least twice a day for two minutes. That’s how long dental research says it takes to remove the film of sticky, bacterial plaque that builds up during the day. But, if you have got wonky teeth, all that brushing may not be reaching the plaque. And if you can’t get at it, it will build up, harden into tartar and give off acids that cause decay and gum disease.

What this means is that in the long run, wonky teeth, with all those nooks and crannies for plaque to proliferate in, tend not to last as long as straight teeth. So, if you want to hang onto your teeth for as long as you can, you need to get them straightened with braces in St John’s Wood.

At Aura Dental, we can help you find the right braces in St John’s Wood to suit your lifestyle, your budget and your realignment needs.

If you are an adult, you will probably want braces that detract as little as possible from your looks. You might be happy with discreet braces in St John’s Wood, such as those from Six Month Smiles, clear aligners, or invisible lingual braces.

Six Month Smiles

These are bracket and wire braces, but the brackets are smaller and made of clear ceramic and the wires are finer and tooth-coloured. You can see these braces, but they blend in with the teeth rather than dominating them. These braces are designed to work on the front six teeth only and the average treatment time for realignment is six months.

Invisalign

These are clear aligners that snap on over the teeth like mouth guards. They are very thin and transparent and when they are in place, they are very hard to spot. The average treatment time is a year and they work best on mild to moderate misalignments.

Lingual braces

These are bracket and wire braces that are fixed to the inside (tongue-side) of the teeth, where they can’t be seen at all. Each bracket is made to exactly fit each tooth and so these braces can be used to correct even very complex alignment issues.

If you look back over time, you will find that people have always done their best to look after their teeth. There are human remains going back 9,000 years or more that have evidence of having had dental work done to them. And, certainly the ancient Egyptians were keen to experiment with ways to straighten teeth.

Now, we have reached a time when braces work really well on all sorts of alignment problems and there are fewer and fewer excuses for wonky teeth. In fact, you rarely see them on millennials.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that more people are having straighter teeth come through naturally; there are as many wonky teeth as ever. The difference is that devices for straightening teeth are more discreet and more of them are designed to work on mild misalignments. Mildly wonky teeth take less time to straighten and can be fixed with devices that can barely be seen, such as Invisalign. In St John’s Wood, at Aura Dental, we are accredited to use Invisalign on our patients, and, they love this tooth straightening by stealth.

Invisalign in St John’s Wood: the lowdown

If you have never heard of Invisalign, then prepare to be a bit surprised. This device is nothing like traditional bracket and wire braces. There are no wires, and only two metal clips on your back teeth. The rest of the device is a very thin plastic tray that snaps on over your teeth rather like a mouth guard.

Instead of having just one device that stays glued to your teeth for months on end, Invisalign is a series of clear aligner trays. You wear each one for 7-10 days before moving on to the next. The straightening comes from precision-placed pressure points within each aligner that gently nudge your teeth one tiny step towards alignment. Once the pressure of each aligner wears off, it’s time to move onto the next one.

At 0.3mm thick, it’s almost impossible to see the aligners once they are in place. Plus, they are removable for eating, drinking anything other than plain water and for cleaning.

To find out more about Invisalign in St John’s Wood, why not come in for a consultation?

Having braces in St John’s Wood will not only enhance your smile but also improve your dental health. At Aura Dental, we have a range of contemporary braces and aligners. Made of lightweight materials and often transparent, these appliances will stay discreet while they do their work. Once your teeth are properly aligned, you’ll have a smile you’ll be proud to show off, and a mouth that’s easier to keep clean.

Avoiding harmful developments

In St John’s Wood, braces give you the opportunity to avoid future oral health issues. Poorly-positioned teeth leave awkward spaces in the mouth. The toothbrush can have difficulty reaching these spaces, which allows food particles and bacteria to build up to harmful levels. Gum disease and tooth decay can result.

As well as this, a poorly-aligned bite means your teeth are under more strain, putting you at risk of injury. Our modern-day braces and aligners will greatly reduce your exposure to these problems, while increasing the appeal of your smile. Having braces in St John’s Wood can improve your overall quality of life.

A range of braces in St John’s Wood

The first stage of your treatment is an in-depth assessment with our dental team. We’ll look at the condition of your teeth and your dental history and find out how you want your teeth to look when the treatment is over. We can then offer you the most appropriate methods of achieving your desired effects.

If the problem is with your front teeth, Six Month Smiles might be the best option. This appliance uses tooth-coloured wires and transparent brackets attached to the surface of your teeth. As the name suggests, average treatment times can be relatively speedy.

Alternatively, Invisalign might be a good option. In this procedure, a dental laboratory produces a series of clear plastic aligners. You’ll wear a set of these fully-customised appliances for 7-10 days, before moving on to the next one. Because each set is a slightly different shape, your teeth will gradually take up improved positions. These innovative St John’s Wood braces are highly discreet and very user-friendly. You can remove them from your mouth when you need to eat a meal or brush your teeth.

Snap judgments based on visual cues and the use of other senses make up the bulk of what we decide about people when me meet them for the first time. All this takes place within a few seconds of meeting. We use those cues to decide if someone is warm and friendly or cold and distant, whether they are happy and if they are open, honest and trustworthy.

Picking up visual information is almost a subconscious action. And while we are busy deciding what we think about that new person, they are doing the same with us. First encounters, and what people decide about others from them, can make or break dreams. Certainly, lack of a warm smile can make an encounter trickier than it needs to be.

If you are too ashamed of your smile to turn it on when meeting new people, they will probably assume you are miserable or unfriendly, even though in reality, you are simply too embarrassed by your wonky teeth. Don’t let yourself lose out on life’s opportunities because you’re too ashamed of your teeth to smile.

At Aura Dental in St John’s Wood, Invisalign is an innovative way of teeth straightening that allows you more freedom during treatment, while at the same time, being so discreet that no one will know you are undergoing treatment.

In St John’s Wood, Invisalign straightens out crooked, over-crowded or misaligned teeth without the use of brackets, bands or wires. Instead, with Invisalign you wear a series of clear resin trays, resembling mouth-guards, to move your teeth into a straighter position.

The Invisalign method means you can avoid the ‘train-track’ look associated with being a teenager. Also, the 3D printed, clear plastic aligners are so thin that, when they are snapped on over your teeth, they become almost invisible, and do not interfere with speech.

Thirdly, in St John’s Wood, Invisalign trays are removable so that brushing and flossing is easy, and you can continue to eat whatever you like. Also, if absolutely necessary, you can remove the aligners for a few hours for ultra-important business or social events (although you should not make a habit of this).

There aren’t many people who wouldn’t like to have a lovely smile full of straight teeth. Smiles are worth investing in because they are so important in our daily interactions with those we love, those we work with and those we encounter briefly and may never see again. When a smile is in good working order, it’s a pleasure to behold and to use. Getting a great smile by having your teeth straightened can feel like something of an ordeal, and the idea of the hassle and inconvenience that comes with braces may be putting you off getting your smile upgraded. If that’s the case, you’re going to love Invisalign in St John’s Wood.

If you’ve never heard of Invisalign in St John’s Wood, then you need to pop into see us at Aura Dental. We are an accredited provider of Invisalign, a great way to discreetly straighten teeth without the hassle of having brackets and wires fixed to your teeth.

What do they look like?

Instead of brackets and wires, Invisalign in St John’s Wood is made up of aligners that look more like very thin plastic mouth guards moulded to the teeth, hugging them so tightly that, once they are snapped on, they are pretty much impossible to see.

How do they work?

Instead of one device, you receive a series of aligners. Each one has pressure points carefully designed into it and these press on your teeth. You start at aligner number one and work your way through them, changing each one for the next when that feeling of pressure wears off, which takes 7-10 days. How many aligners you will need to wear depends on the severity and complexity of your alignment issues.

Cleaning and eating

You take your aligners out to clean them, and also whenever you consume anything other than plain water. This means you can continue to eat whatever you like. You need to wear them for at least 20 hours a day.

After completion

Treatment with Invisalign in St John’s Wood takes, on average, a year and afterwards you will need to wear a retainer to keep your teeth in their new positions while they settle in.

If you are thinking about getting braces in St John’s Wood, you are probably mostly concerned with how you are going to look while the braces are on your teeth, and you are already looking forward to the day that the braces come off and your lovely straight teeth are there looking marvellous for the whole world to admire.

But, hang on a minute. It’s not quite as simple as that. Once you have been through treatment with braces in St John’s Wood with us at Aura Dental, there is another phase. This phase is when you need to wear a retainer.

What is a retainer?

A retainer is a device that holds the teeth in place once they have reached their final position during treatment with braces in St John’s Wood. You need to wear it on your teeth for some time after treatment ends, possibly even the rest of your life. Your teeth will naturally want to return to the position they were in before braces, you see.

Bonded retainer

A bonded retainer is fixed to the insides of your teeth, so no one will be able to see it. The bonding is very strong and only we will be able to remove it. So, if you are not so great at being disciplined about such things, this is probably the retainer for you.

Essix retainer

This is more like a mouth guard, being a very thin sheet of plastic that is heated and sucked down over a plaster-cast of your newly straightened teeth. Once it has hardened the edges are cut away and this becomes your new retainer, which you wear at night. Patients using Invisalign will probably opt for this kind of retainer, and, in fact, Align Technology, the makers of Invisalign, do their own version of an Essix retainer, called a Vivera retainer.

Ask us about retainers

If you are planning on getting braces in St John’s Wood with us, you can ask us all about retainers when you have your consultation appointment. We will be happy to answer all your questions and can even show you examples of retainers.

If your dentist has recommended teeth straightening or you are looking to improve your smile, you will be pleased to find out that you have several choices available. For a long time, the most common type of teeth straightening was metal braces, which albeit effective, were considered bulky and unattractive. However, dentistry has evolved and you can now take advantage of more discreet straightening treatments like Invisalign.

If you are ready to explore your teeth straightening options and restore your smile, you may be wondering if Invisalign in St John’s Wood is the right option for you. At Aura Dental, we are here to examine your teeth and help you decide whether Invisalign can help you overcome your tooth alignment problems. Using the latest technology, Invisalign in St John’s Wood corrects the vast majority of problems you might experience with your teeth.

How does Invisalign work?

Instead of using metal brackets and wires, Invisalign consists of a series of clear, plastic, removable aligners. These aligners are customised to apply gentle pressure to gradually align your teeth into their correct position. Aligners have to be worn at least 22 hours per day in order to achieve the best results; however, they can easily be removed for eating, brushing, and flossing your teeth.

Who is a good candidate for Invisalign?

If you can have metal braces, then it is quite likely that you can also have Invisalign. However, Invisalign requires patient compliance in order to be successful and this makes it a better option for responsible teenagers and adults who are committed to their treatment. Depending on the severity of your problem, Invisalign can correct gapped, crooked, crowded and misaligned teeth as well as overbites, underbites, crossbites and relapses from previous teeth straightening work.

Is Invisalign the right treatment for me?

Visiting your dentist is the best way to determine if this treatment suits your dental needs. Your dentist will take x-rays and photos of your teeth and perform a thorough examination. While Invisalign does work well for most patients, if it is not right for your individual needs, there will be other treatment options available to reach your goals.