Lingual Braces – A Great Aesthetic Solution
Not all orthodontic braces are planted on the front of your teeth. There are special braces that do their work behind the teeth called lingual braces or aptly called incognito braces. And because they are bonded behind the teeth, you’ll never know if a person uses one or not.
What are Lingual Braces for?
If you have misaligned, crocked or badly angled front teeth that makes you smile less than flattering, orthodontic braces can solve your condition progressively over, say, 18-36 months, depending on the severity of the condition you want to be corrected. The traditional route is to get those metal braces implanted around your dentures to correct the misaligned or angling but you start to look like Iron Man when smiling. A lot of adults get turned off to the idea of traditional metal braces flashed whenever they smile.
The Cost of Lingual Braces
The cost of Lingual Braces is higher than traditional metal braces, as one might expect. You can expect that the treatment cost for lingual braces will be roughly $1,500 to $2,000 greater than that cost of traditional metal braces. One of the biggest factors is the cost of the materials for Lingual Braces. The materials used with metal braces are more commonly produced and therefore less expensive to orthodontists.
Advantages of Lingual Braces
A solution that has more aesthetic and cosmetic appeal is to go for lingual braces. Instead of having metal brackets bonded on your front set of dentures, these metal braces are customized to bond at the back of the teeth so they remain invisible when smiling. They are a cosmetic alternative to those who want their teeth corrected but without the unaesthetic metal look when they smile.
Just to overemphasize its benefits, the obvious advantage of lingual braces is that no one will know you are wearing them, unless, they start looking inside your mouth. Other than that, there is no compelling medical or clinical reason to use lingual braces over regular braces.
Disadvantages of Lingual Braces
Don’t expect your family dentist to know how to install a lingual brace for you. Dentists and orthodontists require specialized training to enable them to treat patients opting for lingual braces. Not every orthodontist offers this option. To search for one who does, ask your dentist or Google search for the term lingual braces along with your name, state or country. Implanting lingual braces may cause serious discomfort for the patient and can be a real challenge for the dentist installing one. The patient would need to lean his head as far back as he can in order for the dentist to better have a firm handle on the installation process. The dentist would have to lean over more as well.
The lingual brackets are to be held closer together since the inner arch around the backside of the teeth has a smaller dimension than the arch on the outside. This makes both the installation and the subsequent adjustment visits more difficult. The lingual braces can also irritate the tongue initially than with regular braces. In addition, because the process is more involved and tedious, orthodontists charge significantly higher for this service compared with ceramic braces which are already more expensive than traditional metal braces.
Lingual Braces a The Better Aesthetic Alternative
If patients want a less conspicuous option for their braces and a more cost-effective solution that exacts less tedium and discomfort for both the patient and the dentist, using ceramic or clear braces offer a more aesthetically inconspicuous solution than regular metal braces and is considerably easier to install and adjust.