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Our practice provides orthodontic care for children, teenagers and adults. As a board certified specialist in orthodontics, Dr. Martinez is trained to provide a full range of services. Some of these services include:
Interceptive care for children (This involves children ages 7 - 11) Did you know that the American Association of Orthodontists recommends that all children should have an orthodontic screening no later than age 7? Treatment at this stage involves altering the development of teeth, jaws and muscles. Through proper guidance, an improper skeletal relationship can develop along a more favorable path. This improved path of development optimizes occlusion and aesthetics while decreasing the need to extract permanent teeth or seek surgical assistance. All appliances utilized are very dependent upon proper timing. Once children pass a certain age, these appliances can no longer be utilized because growth is no longer a factor.
Click here to learn about the appliances we use.
Braces - Conventional braces for teens and adults We utilize the highest quality brackets along with temperature sensitive, super-flexible arch-wires. These wires do not exert all of their force at one moment in time. Instead, they exert a small amount of force from the time they are placed until the time they are removed. Therefore, instead of being forced, teeth are gently encouraged to move into the desired direction.
The brackets and the arch-wires are both equally important. While the bracket is physically attached to the tooth and contains the necessary information (prescription) to get a tooth straight, it doesn’t have the force needed to move a tooth. While the wire has the force to move a tooth, it doesn’t have the ability to control the direction of its force. It takes the information contained in a bracket and the force of the wire to obtain tooth movement.
A complete understanding of this combination of information and force is imperative for precise, controlled and safe tooth movement.
Metal Braces: We utilize one of the best metal brackets on the market; this high quality results in fewer emergency appointments, less brackets falling off and faster treatment time. These braces are a lot of fun because while they are getting your teeth perfectly straight, you can personalize them at every appointment by changing the colors of the elastics on the braces (favorite colors, school colors, sports teams, holidays, etc.). We also have colors that blend in with the braces for our patients who prefer a conservative appearance. .
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