What kind of teeth look good? When should orthodontics start? Can adults still correct their teeth? The author recently visited the Ma's Dentistry located in Fushan Road, Shangcheng Road, Pudong. Dr. Ma Zongting, an orthodontist, told me that malocclusion (including "seven-sided teeth", "climbing teeth" and "shrinking mouth") is a common oral and maxillofacial disease, because it not only easily leads to diseases such as dental caries, periodontal disease and temporomandibular joint dysfunction, but also affects facial beauty and even causes patients' inferiority complex. There is no strict age limit for the treatment of malocclusion, which does not mean that people think that it can't be treated below 12 or before tooth replacement, nor does it mean that adults can't be treated with teeth. It's just that the purpose and method of correction at different age stages are different. As long as they can adapt to and choose appropriate correction methods, most of these patients can get ideal results.

For children who have not changed their teeth, some serious malocclusion needs to be corrected during their growth and development. If it is delayed, it may cause serious facial deformity. In orthodontic treatment, simple removable appliances can be used for local teeth with uneven arrangement; For facial skeletal dysplasia, functional appliances can be used to correct it during its growth and development period, which can achieve good results. Of course, some cases with congenital or genetic factors often need surgical treatment to obviously improve the deformity.

For most malocclusions in which teeth have been replaced, fixed orthodontics (also called "braces") is currently used. Straight wire appliance is the most advanced fixed appliance, which is more efficient than traditional standard edgewise appliance and easier to achieve the best occlusion of teeth. For adults, an increasingly large orthodontic group, as long as the facial bones are not deformed and the health of periodontal tissues is not very bad, most of them can get satisfactory results, but the course of treatment will be slightly longer. In fact, in developed countries, orthodontics for the elderly is also in the ascendant.