Harley Street Dental Clinic

Orthodontic treatment is an important investment in your oral health. Having the best result possible will help ensure a beautiful and healthy smile for years to come. For all these reasons, it is really important to take good care of your teeth while wearing braces.

At Harley Street Dental Clinic, orthodontics in Harley Street is what we do best. We are passionate about educating our patients, since we strongly believe that prevention is better than cure. By learning about proper orthodontic care in advance, you will be better prepared no matter what type of braces you are wearing.

Intensify your oral hygiene routine

If you opt for fixed braces, you will soon realise that your brackets have more nooks and crevices that you probably thought. These can be an ideal breeding ground for bacteria. For this reason, you need to pay extra attention when cleaning your teeth. If needed, invest in an electric toothbrush or use an interdental soft-bristled brush to ensure that all food remains are safely removed from your brackets.

Flossing can be tricky when wearing braces, yet there are techniques which can help achieve a great result, so ask your dentist or do your own research. It goes without saying that while you are having orthodontic treatment, you will need to have your teeth cleaned and checked by our dental hygienist. This way any minor problems will be addressed quickly and appropriately.

Alter your diet

Unless you opt for Invisalign or any other removable teeth-straightening device that can be taken out when you eat, chances are than you will need to be careful about the foods you eat. Sticky and chewy foods tend to linger on your braces, facilitating the formation of plaque. Starchy and sugary foods, on the other hand, can cause tooth decay. Instead of consuming sugary drinks, drink plenty of water and eat loads of non-chewy fruits, nuts and vegetables.

Additional tips

If you don’t have access to your toothbrush after a meal, vigorously rinse your mouth with water to ensure that all food remains that are trapped inbetween your brackets are gone.

Get in touch

To find out more about orthodontics in Harley Street, contact us today.

Whether you are 15 or 50, you may be eligible for orthodontic care, since everyone deserves a beautiful, healthy and straight smile. Ideally, orthodontic work should be undertaken at an early age to ensure that adult teeth appear properly. However, a lot of people who have had orthodontic treatment during childhood, develop more problems while growing up. Today, more and more adults are seeking the help of an orthodontist and this has led to the creation and development of many innovative discreet teeth-straightening methods with great results.

At Harley Street Dental Clinic, we specialise in adult orthodontics. Our orthodontist in Harley Street will examine your teeth thoroughly and locate potential problems with crowding, alignment, protruding teeth, underbites, overbites, crossbites and more. Instead of wearing metal braces, these problems can be addressed with discreet orthodontic devices such as Invisalign and lingual braces.

What are some obvious signs that I may need to see an orthodontist?

If your child, a member of your family or yourself, experience one or more of the following symptoms, then it is time to book an appointment with an orthodontist in Harley Street:

• Overlapping teeth
• Overcrowded teeth
• Jaws that ‘pop’
• Difficulty chewing
• Migraines
• Mouth grinding
• Tooth grinding
• Tooth clenching
• Protruding teeth
• Twisted teeth.

Orthodontic treatment can be successful at any age, and adults especially, can fully appreciate the advantages of a beautiful smile. However, not all adult orthodontic treatments are ideal for misaligned teeth. Whereas lingual braces can fix a wide variety of dental problems (including serious ones), Invisalign and clear braces can only fix mild-to-moderate alignment issues. This is because they are designed to move teeth in a different way and cannot apply as much pressure as regular braces. In some cases, patients start with regular braces and gradually move to discreet braces as their treatment progresses.

We are happy to answer your questions

If you are still not sure about visiting the orthodontist in Harley Street, contact our friendly team and ask any questions you may have about your visit. We are here to help you feel at ease and make you feel confident about changing your smile.

Having crooked teeth can be an oral health concern as well as a cosmetic one. Because awkwardly-positioned teeth are more difficult to keep clean, bacteria have more of a chance to build up and cause harm. Misaligned bites can put strain on your jaw. Small imperfections can be a visual irritation. At Harley Street Dental Clinic, we offer several modern solutions for people who need an orthodontist in Harley Street. Our efficient and customised processes will give you a better-looking smile with better-functioning teeth.

An up-to-date orthodontist in Harley Street

The appearance of your teeth can be badly affected by small but noticeable imperfections, but there’s always a solution for whatever bothers you about your teeth. Our experienced team will ensure you feel at ease when you come to discuss your options with us.

Invisalign is often chosen by patients of the Harley Street orthodontist for its low-visibility qualities. In this innovative treatment, we take precise measurements of your mouth, and produce a series of transparent plastic aligners based on these measurements. You’ll wear a pair of your aligners over your teeth for a period of 7-10 days. Then you’ll wear the next pair in the series for another 7-10 days, and so on until the treatment is complete.

Invisalign doesn’t involve any attachments to your teeth, so you can take it out when you have to brush your teeth or eat. They’re a low-hassle solution from the orthodontist in Harley Street.

Using fixed braces

Our fixed braces are made of transparent or tooth-coloured components. Although they’re attached to your teeth, they’re not very obvious when you open your mouth, so your realignment treatment can remain low-key. We can also attach braces to the backs of your teeth. Their wires and brackets will apply gentle pressure to realign your smile without causing visual disruption.

Better smiles

Visiting the Harley Street orthodontist will improve your teeth cosmetically and functionally. The treatments do take time. You might need 18 months or longer to complete the process, but the results will last for many years afterwards. Our experienced dental team can guide you through this transformational time.

A visit to the orthodontist in Harley Street can have a huge impact on your life. If you’ve ever covered your face when you talk or held back on laughter or smiles because of wonky teeth, it could change all that.

Having crooked or crowded teeth doesn’t just dent your self-confidence, it can also affect how you relate to others. If you don’t feel able to smile a genuine and warm smile, others will subconsciously register you as unfriendly. They don’t know you are embarrassed by your teeth. All they pick up on is the lack of a smile, and they won’t even know they are doing it.

Humans are subconsciously programmed to respond to smiles within a split second of meeting someone new. Without that response, we don’t feel as open towards the other person and we won’t necessarily even know why. This could be having a big effect on your personal and professional life.

What happens at the orthodontist in Harley Street?

Orthodontic treatment is complex and multi-layered and can take 2-3 years to complete, but it’s worth it for a lifetime of happy smiles. The orthodontist in Harley Street is aiming to bring your teeth and jaws into balance, to improve both the health and appearance of your smile. There are a variety of dental appliances they use to do this job, including:

• clear braces that blend in with the teeth
• transparent plastic aligners that fit over the teeth like thin mouth guards
• lingual braces that fit behind the teeth
• bracket and wire braces that are great for resolving complex misalignments of the jaw.

Jaw realignment needs to happen before age 18, as the bone sets solid once we enter adulthood. The teeth can move around in the jaw at any age, however, so braces are useful for adults as well as children.

An adult is more likely to see the orthodontist in Harley Street for cosmetic issues with their teeth, which can be resolved ever more discreetly these days.

Drop into Harley Street Dental Clinic and talk to us about your options for clear, invisible and hidden braces. It could just be the best thing you can do to boost your self-esteem.

Once a dentist has completed their five years initial training, they can practise as a general dentist. If they want to focus on a particular field, such as orthodontics in Harley Street, they need to do another qualification, which takes an additional 2-3 years.

Orthodontics is concerned with straightening teeth. The way most of us will understand that is braces. Orthodontists are those fiends who fit you with metal train tracks for up to two years. But there’s a very good reason for doing so. The aim of orthodontics in Harley Street is to create harmony between the teeth and jaws. This is because if your jaws don’t bite together correctly, and your teeth don’t line up right, it can cause a number of health issues, including:

• Jaw pain
• Uneven wear on teeth, leading to tooth loss
• Headaches
• Joint wear.

Then there’s the cosmetic aspect to consider. While wearing braces is no one’s idea of a good look, it’s a short-term pain for a long-term benefit. If you have crooked, crowded, gapped or protruding teeth, braces can bring these into line, leaving you with a lifetime of straight smiles.

Straighter teeth are also healthier because they are easier to clean. There’s fewer irregular spaces to try and work the brush and floss into. And, this also means there are fewer gaps for bacteria and plaque to hide in.

So, orthodontics in Harley Street provides many benefits. At Harley Street Dental Clinic, we offer a number of teeth straightening services, for both health and cosmetic purposes. This includes options that will appeal to image-conscious teens and adults, who don’t want to sport a mouth full of metal while getting straighter teeth.

Lingual braces are bracket and wire braces that are fixed to the back of the teeth. This means they can’t be seen, and they do the same job as their front-facing counterparts.

Invisalign is a braces system that uses pairs of thin, clear plastic aligners to gradually nudge the teeth into position. Not suitable for more complex cases, but it can do wonders for mild to moderate misalignments of the teeth.

Clear braces use bracket and wire technology but are made of tooth-coloured materials, so blend into the teeth.

Teeth are not just there to make your smile fabulous, they are also there to bite and chew your food into a paste that can be easily swallowed and easily digested. Remember when eating your food, you only have one set of teeth and they are at the very beginning of your digestive system. If you swallow your food in big lumps, there’s nothing in your stomach or intestines to further break it down into particles of a size that can be easily accessed by your gut. If you don’t or can’t chew your food properly, you are depriving your body of essential nutrients.

If your teeth are not well aligned, it can be a hindrance to properly chewing your food, which is one reason to investigate orthodontics with us at Harley Street Dental Clinic in Harley Street.

Orthodontics are not just for children, or for serious misalignment issues. They are also great for correcting the position of teeth that are only mildly or moderately wonky.

Spread the burden

If your teeth are misaligned, it means that some of your teeth will be taking more of the strain of chewing, and that can be a lot of pressure. Did you know that the average adult male chew can exert as much pressure as 97kg or 200lbs? With that kind of force going on, you can see how, over time, it might cause the teeth taking most of the strain to crumble, especially if you also grind your teeth at night.

Getting your teeth aligned with braces or clear aligners will ensure that your teeth work properly together as a team to spread the burden of chewing, and, therefore, hopefully, last longer.

Easy to clean

The other important aspect of tooth alignment is that having teeth that line up next to each other correctly makes them much easier to keep clean. You won’t have to spend as much time poking around with interdental brushes to remove plaque hidden away in crevices, and, in the long run, this will also help protect you against decay and gum disease, and help you keep your own teeth longer.

All too often, the word ‘braces’ is associated with children or young adolescents and is reminiscent of ‘metal mouths’. However, getting braces as an adult is no longer a dental taboo since an increasing number of adults opt for a straight set of teeth and studies have shown that nowadays at least 20% of braces wearers are adults. This is mostly due to the development of less visible orthodontic options.

Crooked and misaligned teeth are not just a problem during adolescence, despite what you may think. Ageing can cause teeth to become less straight.  At Harley Street Dental Clinic, we use orthodontics in Harley Street to treat diverse misalignment problems. If you are an adult with crooked, crowded or spaced out teeth then discreet orthodontics in Harley Street could be the right option for you. Adults looking for dental braces today will find more than just chunky metal ones.

Invisible braces: a whole world of options

There are many types of invisible braces and aligners available, the most common of which are clear braces, lingual braces, and Invisalign aligners. Clear braces work exactly like traditional metal braces minus the metal wiring. With clear braces, clear brackets and tooth-coloured wires move the teeth into alignment.

Lingual braces, on the other hand, are metal braces placed behind your teeth. Although their position in the mouth makes them virtually invisible, lingual braces may take some getting used as they are positioned next to the tongue.

Finally, Invisalign aligners are clear plastic custom-made aligners, which are used to gradually adjust the position of teeth. Invisalign is a very popular teeth straightening method among adults and perhaps for good reason since the aligners can be removed to eat and clean your teeth and are almost completely invisible to the eye. However, they must be worn for at least 20-22 hours a day in order for the treatment to run to schedule.

Although orthodontics can be effective at any age, be aware that sometimes it can take longer for adults to see results. To learn more about discreet orthodontics in Harley Street, please contact us today.

Change and transitions can be scary, but what about when they’re leading to better things? A trip to the dentist might not appeal to some people, particularly to patients who feel nervous before an appointment. The trouble usually seems to be the fear of the unknown, because you never know what the dentist will find, like the secrets behind your smile.

Visiting the dentist does not have to be scary and uncertain, because at Harley Street Dental Clinic we make sure that you know everything there is to know about your own teeth. We treat all of our patients with respect and understanding, liking to make sure that we get to know you as a person.

Looking for an orthodontist in Harley Street?

So when it comes to the troubles that crooked or crowded teeth may be causing you, we want to help you find a solution. Teeth-straightening treatments are a part of that change, the sort of change that leads to a straighter and healthier smile. We are an orthodontist in Harley Street offering a range of teeth-straightening treatments, from the clear and removable to the entirely invisible.

Invisalign is the flexible alternative to traditional metal braces. This teeth-straightening treatment works as a series of clear aligners that gently move your teeth to their desired positions over time. These are made especially for your teeth to fit snugly over them, so they cannot be used by any of your friends and family.

Another alternative to the traditional are lingual braces. These use similar straightening methods to metal braces with wires and brackets. The difference between them is that lingual braces are placed on the back of the teeth, working to straighten them discreetly without you or anyone else noticing.

An orthodontist in Harley Street to smile about

Whatever teeth-straightening treatment you feel best suits you, the aim is to end your dental journey with a straighter and healthier smile. By moving your teeth to their correct positions and fixing issues such as gaps between the teeth, there is less room for plaque to build up. This can mean avoiding further interruptions to your smile with nasty problems like gum disease and tooth decay.

Even thinking about teeth-straightening treatment seems pointless if you are convinced that traditional metal braces are the only option. Although these sorts of braces are designed to solve crooked teeth or cross-bites, certain patients may not be able to even consider wearing metal braces as an adult. This is why orthodontics in Harley Street comes with different treatments to suit individual patients.

In Harley Street, orthodontics is dedicated to straightening teeth and relieving you of the struggles and discomforts that can come with crooked teeth and cross-bites. It is important to know that straighter teeth are healthier teeth and at Harley Street Dental Clinic, we want to give you the healthy smile that everyone deserves to flaunt. If the gaps between your teeth are closed in, it means there is fewer places for plaque to build up and cause further complications. If you once had trouble biting and chewing on your favourite foods, teeth-straightening treatments work to align your bite.

Orthodontics in Harley Street

We have a range of treatments at Harley Street Clinic and there is at least one for the severity of your case and your lifestyle needs. If discretion is what you are looking for in a teeth-straightening treatment then you might like the sound of lingual braces and Invisalign.

Firstly, lingual braces are fairly similar to traditional braces. Brackets are placed onto each tooth and wire runs through them, serving to gradually shift the teeth to their correct positions at the end of treatment. They sound like metal braces, with the only difference being their invisibility. They are different because they are placed on the back of your teeth, making it almost impossible for anyone, including you, to see them.

As for Invisalign, this a treatment that is both clear and flexible. This is a series of clear aligners, given to you to switch over every 7-10 days. With every set, your teeth are gently being shifted until they reach their desired positions. The aligners are not fixed so you can remove them when you brush and floss your teeth.

The journey towards a straighter and enhanced smile should be exciting and the discreet options of orthodontics in Harley Street make it all the more appealing.

One of the most important check-ups your child can have is the one with the orthodontist in Harley Street to determine whether or not they will need braces to correctly align their teeth.

In modern dentistry, the age at which the orthodontist in Harley Street can treat children has become much younger, and so therefore has the orthodontic check-up. It is now possible for the orthodontist to predict how the adult teeth will come through and therefore braces can be used to guide the teeth into their correct position rather than to reposition them once they are already in place.

Starting younger with braces

The modern orthodontist, such as we have at Harley Street Dental Clinic, can carry out this initial check-up when your child’s first adult teeth have started to come through, usually around the age of seven. This means that treatment can start at around nine years of age, and be over before your child hits adolescence, which is when their levels of self-conscious will skyrocket for a few years and seeming out of the ordinary in any way will be excruciating for them.

Children often need to have fixed braces that cannot come off and get lost and are less prone to breakages. They tend to still be made of metal to make them less fragile, but the brackets are often smaller and can be brightened up with coloured elastics.

Treating issues with the bite

Having treatment for bite problems is also best when carried out young. If the jaw is too narrow to accommodate all the teeth neatly, the traditional solution has been to wait until the adult teeth come through, then extract a few and straighten up the rest. But this results in a smaller bite and a big, wide grin is far more attractive than a narrow mealy-mouthed smile.

Treating bite issues is easy as long as the bones of the jaw are malleable. They set hard around the age of 18 years, so the earlier the treatment, the more plastic the bone, and the orthodontist in Harley Street can use appliances to wide the jaw and so accommodate all the teeth.