Gap Teeth
I’m gonna discuss a little bit about what causes the spacing in your teeth(Gap Teeth) and then how we can fix it.
The number one cause for spacing in between the front two teeth, which is a little bit more common, you have a muscle, and we call it a frenum attachment.
You have a part that attaches your upper lip to your gums. Everyone has it and, it allows your upper lip to be mobile and move.
But it also causes your lip to be fixated a little bit. Otherwise, you may be able to pull your upper lip over your nose or something like that.
Everyone’s muscle attaches a little bit differently.
On some people, that muscle attaches a little bit lower than it’s normal.
And it will place right in between your two front teeth.
When that happens, you’re much more prone to have a space develop there.
The reason is any time you eat, any time you talk, the time you chew, any time you’re moving your upper lip, you pulling on that little muscle.
You’re pulling on that attachment, and that actually causes a little bit of force there and pulls those front two teeth together.
If you have a case where you have no space anywhere except between your front two teeth, chances are you’ve got a low muscle attachment.
Some people with such a gap view it as a trademark of their smile, and they have no desire to close it.
Other people, however, are embarrassed by the space, and they wonder, What are my options for closing a space between my teeth?
If you are among this latter group, the following information may be of interest to you.
We’re going to be discussing ways that spaces between teeth can be closed with or without braces.
How to Fix Gap in Teeth?
There are a couple of different methods that we use to do that.
It depends on how the teeth fit together and the space’s size.
If it’s a little space, if it’s something that just started to open up, or if it’s something that’s almost just a crack or a hair, that’s very easy to fix.
It could have been done in some different ways.
- The easiest way is probably just with a regular retainer that’s a little bit tight.
So, we have a clear plastic retainer that’s been tightened in a couple of spots, and it’ll pull the teeth together and push them back to where they need to be.
And it usually is done in a week or two. That’s really in straightforward cases. - Those are more cases where someone has had treatment before, and that space reoccurs.
Maybe they lost their retainer, or for whatever reason, the space in between the teeth has decided to open again.
Those we can typically fix just with a retainer in a couple of weeks.
If the gap teeth are much larger, we must consider how the teeth are coming together.
We’ve got a set of upper and lower teeth here.
As you can imagine, we had a big gap or space between our front teeth; when we pull those together, the teeth don’t come together.
They don’t just slide together. They also come back a bit, which is just the nature of closing the teeth.
If we were to pull the teeth together, you can imagine there would be spaces on the other sides of the teeth.
So to close that space and keep the areas closed on the backsides of the teeth, we pull the teeth slightly inwards.
Not enough to where you would notice a change of position of the teeth or a change in profile, but enough to where it would affect your bite.
3. Sometimes, because of the way the top teeth and the bottom teeth come together, if there isn’t a lot of overbites there and you do have a lot of spacing, you will need lower braces even if your lower teeth are completely straight.
Because we’re pulling those upper teeth back, and if we just pull them back, you will start hitting on those lower teeth.
We need to do lower braces to get those in a better position and have everything fit together nicely.
If you do have a bit of an overbite, if do have a little bit of a gap, then it’s pretty quick and easy to close that space and have those teeth fit together really nicely.
How Do We Keep The Space Closed Once It Is Closed?
The question is how do we keep the space closed once it is closed, especially if you have, again, that low muscle attachment.
There are a couple of things we can do.
1. We can have a gum specialist remove the attachment there, and put it in a different place. That’s a kind of long-term fix. It works very well.
2. At the same time, people usually don’t wanna go through a surgical procedure to ensure that their teeth are gonna stay the way that they need to stay or the way that they want them to stay.
The thing we’ll do is right behind the teeth, we’ll glue a little wire, and it will act as a permanent retainer. And the nice thing is it’s small, smooth and, low profile.
You don’t even know it’s there after we’ve done it. And then what that does is that it just keeps those teeth together, and it works very well.
It takes a little bit more diligence to keep that clean. You have to floss under it just like you would with the braces.
But it’s not like it’s on all of your teeth; it’s just the front two teeth there.
And that helps us with keeping those front teeth together once we close that space if you have that low muscle attachment.
What to Do If You Have Gaps in Your Teeth?
Spaces between your teeth may not give a pleasing appearance and might make you self-conscious.
once your dentist has determined the reason for the gaps between your teeth, a treatment plan will be discussed .options may include :
- keep the gaps as it is
- Orthodontic treatment to move the teeth and close the spaces
- Use porcelain veneers which are very thin pieces of porcelain
- Bonded to the outside of the teeth
- Crown and bridgework
- Replacement of teeth with implants
- Dental bonding
How to Get Rid of Gaps in Teeth without Braces?
Braces are the only solution for filling gaps in teeth. If you want to close gap teeth without braces, two other options that may be offered are veneers and composite bonding.
Veneers a Porcelain
The veneer is a thin cover that fits on top of your natural teeth to alter the shape and or colour.
Fixing the gaps with veneers is quite straightforward.Dental Bonding
With bonding, a composite material is applied directly to the teeth.
No lab work is required, the dentist builds up and shapes the composite to give the desired appearance.
In the case of filling gaps in teeth, the composite is used to extend the tooth slightly to close the gaps.
