The Best Ways To Close the Gaps Between Your Teeth

Do the gaps between your teeth make you feel self-conscious or cause you to have difficulty eating or speaking? Today, many treatments are available to correct inconsistent spacing between your teeth. These are common treatments and the conditions they correct.

Early Prevention

Your dentist or orthodontist can help you prevent inconsistent spacing between your teeth by diagnosing the problem early and determining its cause. If your gaps are being caused by habits, such as sucking your thumb or lip, pushing your tongue against your teeth or insufficient oral health practices, you can change these habits to protect your teeth. Each habit change prevents further spacing issues inside your mouth.

However, not all inconsistent spacing is caused by your habits. Therefore, other treatments may be necessary to fix teeth gaps.

Surgical Strategies

Some individuals have a large labial frenum that grows between their two front teeth. This frenum is a flap of tissue that connects your gums to your upper lip. If this tissue grows too large, it pushes your front teeth apart. This condition is treated through surgery. Unfortunately, you may still need additional treatments after surgery to permanently align your teeth.

Dental implants also fall under surgery. Implants are suggested when you are missing teeth. In these cases, the surgeon will remove any portion of the tooth that is left in the jaw and install a metal screw into your mouth. After you heal, the surgeon will cut your gum around the screw and install the implant. This treatment is costly, but the implant improves your jaw health, keeping it from degenerating.

Bridges

If you are missing teeth and don’t want to or cannot afford to pursue dental implants, you may choose to have a bridge inserted into your mouth. In this case, one or more false teeth are attached to the teeth on either side of the gap. This is a simple procedure that is often done in a dentist’s office.

Veneers

If your teeth gaps are small, you may opt to have veneers installed. In this case, your dentist can fit you with a thin resin that will seemingly close your gaps. Your teeth do not change position, however. They are only slightly extended to cover irregular spacing in your mouth. Dental bonding is a similar process that is used to widen your lateral incisors, veneers or crowns.

Gum Disease Treatments

If your tooth spacing is caused by poor oral hygiene or gum disease, your dentist or gum specialist may suggest that you receive extensive dental treatment, including scaling your teeth to remove tartar at the gumline. This tarter moves the gums away from your teeth, allowing them to shift and move. If your teeth have moved significantly before your treatment, you may still need additional treatments to shift your teeth back.

Braces and Aligners

The most common initial and follow-up treatment for teeth gaps is braces. When braces are installed, your orthodontist will glue metal tracks to the front of your teeth. Then, steel wires are attached to each track. Throughout your treatment, your teeth are moved closer together by tightening the wires attached to the tracks on your teeth. With braces, you need to regularly visit your orthodontist, and the alignment process can be slow, typically up to 36 months. In addition, you commonly need a full set of braces even if you only have a few gaps because the movement of one tooth affects your entire mouth.

Aligners work like braces, but they clear plastic structures that are moulded to the shape of your teeth. You change aligners every two or more weeks to slowly shift your teeth back into place. This process often takes up to 18 months.

If you have gaps in your teeth, it is vital that you learn the cause so that you and your dentist or orthodontist can choose the treatment that will work best for you.