Braces are used to straighten teeth and improve oral health. They can address crooked teeth, overcrowding, and bite problems. They may be fixed or removable.

Orthodontics has come a long way over the years. There are many different options now to help patients feel more comfortable while wearing braces.

Brackets

Brackets are the small metal or ceramic pieces that hold archwires, which apply pressure to gradually shift teeth into their proper positions. Traditional metal brackets are effective for many cases, including crooked teeth, misaligned jaws, and crowded or spaced teeth.

Curly brackets are a rarely used punctuation mark that come in pairs, like parentheses, but they’re more commonly seen in math, high-level physics, and computer programming languages. Style and grammar guides recommend that they only be used in specific situations.

Ceramic brackets are less noticeable than traditional metal ones and can be clear, making them a good choice for adult patients. Self-ligating brackets clip right onto the archwire without needing elastic ligatures.

Wires

Arch wires apply a constant pressure to your teeth in order to move them and close gaps. They are the heart of your braces. The brackets merely hold them in place.

There are many different types of orthodontic wires. They all have a unique set of advantages for the various stages in treatment. Stainless steel and nickel titanium are the most common wires.

The number of strands in an arch wire bundle affects how flexible, kink-resistant and break-resistant it is. The lowest number of strands that should be used is 7, followed by 19 and then 49. Higher numbers can be abrasive to the gum tissue and may require more elastics.

Ligatures

Ligatures are elastics positioned on the bracket itself that attach to and hold the archwire. They are what apply the constant pressure to help move your teeth. Your orthodontist will change your ligatures at every appointment to ensure they’re working properly.

Using ligatures can help prevent your letters from overlapping or colliding in the same place, which can be annoying when writing in cursive and scripts. Ligatures are also used for stylistic purposes and can make a font more interesting or unique. A ligature can even be created to connect morphemes, which are the smallest units of meaning in a language. For example, the ligature fi can connect the hook on the lowercase f with the tittle over the i to create the letter sequence fi.

Rubber Bands

Rubber bands apply increased force to specific points in the mouth to enhance tooth movement and help correct bite issues. They come in a variety of sizes, forces, and conformations, which your orthodontist will choose depending on the correction needed.

Small elastics are like the ninjas of the orthodontic world, used for delicate movements and precision corrections. Larger elastics are heavy-lifters, shifting bigger, more significant teeth movements. And criss-cross elastics, which cover the mouth in a x pattern, work to correct overbites and underbites by guiding specific upper and lower teeth in opposite directions. They are also available in a wide range of colors to add fun and flair to your braces!

Power Chains

Power chains are a type of elastic bands or ligatures that work with braces to add more force, close gaps between teeth, and increase treatment efficiency. These elastic ligatures connect several brackets together to form a continuous band and do away with the need for individual ligatures on each tooth.

They are most commonly used to help close spaces that form between crooked teeth or after an extraction. They can also aid in aligning rotated or twisted teeth and accelerating orthodontic movement in targeted areas.

While wearing power chains, patients should brush their teeth often to prevent plaque and tartar build-up around the brackets. They should also avoid hard or sticky foods that may dislodge or damage the power chain.

Retainers

Retainers are an essential part of orthodontic treatment and help maintain the results you achieved with braces or Invisalign. They can be removed for eating and cleaning, but should be worn consistently.

Wearing retainers correctly reduces the likelihood that your teeth will shift back to their original positions, undoing all the hard work you and your orthodontist put in. This is especially important for adults, who are more likely to experience teeth shifting than kids because of the changes in bone and fibrous tissue that occur as you age.

There are a few different types of retainers, including bonded (permanently attached to your teeth) and removable retainers such as Hawley retainers or clear plastic retainers. You should always follow your orthodontist’s instructions for wearing and cleaning your retainer.