Are you in Lee’s Summit and concerned about the development of your child’s teeth, jaws, and airway? Are they already showing signs of crowding, crooked teeth, jaw problems, or difficulty breathing? If so, then holistic orthodontic treatment can help improve their development so they can grow up healthy and happy. Holistic orthodontics doesn’t just help your child develop a straight smile. It can help them achieve an attractive facial structure, have a healthy bite, and breathe easily all day long.
Understanding Holistic Orthodontics
The word “holistic” conjures up images of herbal remedies and arcane medical treatments for many people. However, holistic really means dealing with a whole rather than a part. This is what holistic orthodontics tries to do: work with your child’s teeth as part of the whole system of your jaw, skull, airway, and more. This goes beyond the aims of traditional orthodontics, which seek mostly to straighten your teeth.
We all can develop a healthy mouth and face, but modern life doesn’t always give the body what it needs to achieve healthy, functional structures. Holistic orthodontics supplies what is lacking: the right force and pressure at the right time to work with the body’s natural development so that your child can achieve their full, healthy growth potential.
By encouraging proper growth when your child is young, holistic orthodontics can:
- Reduce or eliminate the need for later orthodontic treatment
- Improve your child’s breathing
- Avoid sleep breathing disorders
- Encourage symmetrical facial growth
- Aid full facial development
- Improve speech clarity and enunciation
- Correct oral habits
This helps your child enjoy a healthier, happier life from childhood through adulthood.
Holistic Orthodontic Options
When encouraging your child’s healthy growth, we want to find the orthodontic treatment that works best with their stage of development and addresses their particular developmental issues. To do this, we offer multiple options in Lee’s Summit that might work for your child, including:
- Biobloc appliance
- Advanced Lightwire Functional (ALF)
- Homeoblock appliance
- Myobrace
We’ll describe each of these options below to help you understand how they work.
Biobloc Appliance
The Biobloc appliance encourages your child’s jaw to develop in three dimensions. It can encourage the jaw to widen, lengthen, and deepen, ensuring enough room for all your child’s teeth. This is a relatively aggressive technique for jaw expansion, with the pressure increasing daily. However, it’s also a relatively short treatment, used for no more than four to six months. It’s often combined with Myobrace for best results.
There are three different Biobloc options to help your child get the developmental forces they need.
Advanced Lightwire Functional (ALF)
The ALF appliance has a highly refined design that uses only wire structures to provide gentle, constant support to the teeth and skull. It encourages the functional and natural development of the upper and lower jaws. Your child will get a custom ALF appliance designed to meet their developmental needs. The ALF stimulates the nerves and encourages proper development. It also entices your child to develop healthy habits without adding a bulky structure to their mouth.
Proper growth with ALF appliances leads to an attractive smile, good jaw function, and an open, healthy airway.
Homeoblock Appliance
The Homeoblock appliance is a removable orthodontic treatment that your child will wear only at night. The appliance fits over the front teeth, and it utilizes the natural motions of your child’s jaw, such as swallowing, to exert intermittent light pressure on the teeth and jaws. This pressure stimulates the body to produce more bone, which leads to the development of larger jaws. This can create more room for teeth and improve breathing by expanding the airway. The pressure can also improve your child’s facial appearance by expanding a receding chin or short upper jaw.
The Homeoblock is a holistic orthodontic approach that can help adults and children.
Myobrace
The Myobrace is a myofunctional orthodontic treatment that includes numerous appliance groups to meet your child’s needs no matter their age or stage of development.
Typically, myobrace is a series of aligners that achieve different stages of treatment. The first stage corrects bad habits and encourages nasal breathing. Next, Myobrace encourages the development of your child’s arches, ensuring enough room in the arch for teeth and the proper development of the airway. The final stage of Myobrace encourages straight teeth and works like a retainer to ensure the teeth and jaw retain their healthy configuration.
Get Holistic Orthodontics in Lee’s Summit
Are you interested in helping your child develop healthy, functional jaws with a straight, attractive smile? If so, then holistic orthodontics might be the right choice. To learn more and find the right holistic orthodontics for your child, please call (816) 795-1000 or use our online form to request an appointment with a dentist at the Center for TMJ & Sleep Apnea in Lee’s Summit.
