Why are Large Gaps Between Teeth Concerning?
Having gaps in your teeth can affect both your appearance and self-esteem. When someone feels self-conscious about their smile, they might try to hide it by keeping their lips closed or covering their mouth with their hand, which can come across as awkward and reserved. This self-conscious behavior can impact social interactions and overall confidence.
In addition to aesthetic concerns, gaps between teeth can have functional implications. Filling these gaps can significantly enhance speech clarity by ensuring that the teeth fit together properly, reducing any speech impediments caused by the gaps. Moreover, proper alignment improves the efficiency of chewing and biting, making eating more comfortable and effective.
What Treatments are Available to Address Large Gaps Between Teeth?
- Traditional metal braces: They move teeth using wires and metal brackets bonded to your teeth and held in place with colourful rubber bands. These braces are the most commonly seen, especially in young children and teenagers. However, this is usually the most painful option as the metal parts of the braces can rub against and cut the gums, lips and cheeks.
- Damon clear ceramic braces: These are braces that blend into your tooth colour. Newer types of braces such as Damon do not have rubber bands around the braces, which tend to trap food and bacteria, and so are easier to keep clean after meals.
Damon self-ligating braces are an innovative shift in braces treatment, with many advantages over traditional braces such as them being more comfortable with less pain and much shorter treatment time, even for complex cases.
- Invisalign: These transparent aligners which are virtually invisible allow you to smile with confidence. Invisalign is able to offer a more aesthetically pleasing treatment option for teeth straightening and closing gaps compared to the traditional metal braces. The clear aligner trays are almost invisible, therefore it is the preferred option for people who want to look good and present a professional image.
- Ceramic veneers: Veneers are custom made to suit the shape, size, and colour (shade) of your face. Different teeth shapes will impart a different personality to the smile. These are thin shells of ceramic that are adhered to the tooth on the front to close the gaps.
- Ceramic crown: On a tooth that has been heavily damaged due to root canal treatments and large cavities, the crown restores both structure and strength that have been compromised by chips and cracks. Crowns can be made to close existing gaps as well.
- Dental implants: For missing teeth or large gaps (big enough to fit a single tooth), a dental implant is a great option to restore the gap. This is a very small but strong post which replaces a missing tooth. Properly done, it can look absolutely natural like the neighbouring teeth.
Which Treatment is Suitable for Me?
Orthodontic teeth straightening, which refers to any type of braces or Invisalign, is usually appropriate for the majority of cases where closing large gaps between teeth is desired. The teeth that are in a poor position can be moved into their proper position to result in a beautiful and natural smile.
In cases when there are multiple gaps between teeth or if the current shape and the size of the teeth is not proportionate to the facial aesthetics, then crowns or veneers can be done instead.
Generally speaking, a crown is done if the teeth are decayed or a root canal procedure has been carried out, resulting in not enough material left for the dentist to place a veneer.
Veneers are approximately 0.5-1mm in thickness, and used on the outer tooth surface. This means your original structure is kept intact as much as possible. This saves you money in the long run. The material is placed with the shape of your smile in mind.
For large gaps or gaps that are present due to missing teeth, dental implants would be a good option.
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us and we will get back to you!
References
- Us7077647b2 - Systems and Methods For Treatment Analysis By Teeth Matching
(https://patents.google.com/patent/US7077647B2/en)
- Orthodontic Treatment with a Series Of Removable Appliances
David Chenin-Andrew Trosien-Patricia Fong-Robert Miller-Rodney Lee - (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0002817714650881)
- How Well Does Invisalign Work? A Prospective Clinical Study Evaluating the Efficacy Of Tooth Movement with Invisalign
Neal Kravitz-Budi Kusnoto-Ellen BeGole-Ales Obrez-Brent Agran - (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19121497)
- The Rationale, Evolution and Clinical Application Of the Self‐ligating Bracket
D.H. Damon - (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ocr.1998.1.1.52)
- Initial Arch Wires For Tooth Alignment During Orthodontic Treatment with Fixed Appliances - Jian, F - 2013: Cochrane Library
Jian-Wenli Lai-Susan Furness-Grant McIntyre-Declan Millett-Joy Hickman-Yan Wang - (https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD007859.pub3/abstract)
- Self-ligating Versus Invisalign: Analysis Of Dento-alveolar Effects
Chiara Pavoni-Roberta Lione-Giuseppina Laganà-Paola Cozza - (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3254387/)