Throughout a lifetime, crooked, crowded teeth can cause health problems. But orthodontics offer more choices than ever before. One reason: computers are designing and fabricating the braces. Dr. Linda Niessen looks at the latest trend in today’s Dental Health Check.
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No one notices that Chris Horner has orthodontic braces. All the hardware hides behind his teeth. Chris wears a new type of lingual braces. They are smaller and interfere less with speech."I’ve been extremely pleased with them," said Chris. "Really, quite frankly, it was only about a 7 to 9 day period of discomfort, which I imagine you would get with any type braces."
Chris did not qualify for the popular Invisalign clear plastic trays, called aligners. His case was too complicated. So Chris’ orthodontist, Dr. Cliff Alexander, suggested new braces made by a Dallas company called LingualCare.
"So this new appliance that we have is much smaller. Patients jump out of the chair and can speak perfectly," said Dr. Alexander.
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In older lingual braces, large brackets often cause speech problems. Dentists also spend hours bending the wires by hand."And so that has always been a challenge to get over," Dr. Alexander added.
With LingualCare, small, computer-designed brackets mold to fit each individual tooth. Robot technology, not the orthodontist, bends the custom wires which are changed less frequently than conventional wires.
Chris Horner added, "And the cool thing about lingual too is you can see the progress as you go."
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With Invisalign aligners and the new lingual braces, computer technology designs and makes the appliances. In many cases, this translates into more efficient and quicker treatment. And people don’t know you’re wearing braces.For Baylor College of Dentistry, Texas A&M Health Science Center, I’m Dr. Linda Niessen, Channel 8 News.
Website information:
www.lingualcare.com
Contact:
Dr. Cliff Alexander
5500 Preston Road
Dallas, TX 214-528-3384
STORY: COMPUTER BRACES
SCRIPT #813 SHOOT: 1/18/08
AIRDATE: Monday, Jan. 28, 2008
DHC Master #18 Timecode: 53:04 SOVT: 1:35
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