What Is Malocclusion?

Malocclusion is a problem that occurs in many people nowadays. It is the misalignment and an incorrect connection between the teeth of the two dental arcs when they approach one another as the jaws close. The teeth will not be able to perform vital functions if they are aligned.

Dentists say that malocclusion is a common problem nowadays. Occlusion is a name that refers to the alignment of the teeth. Everyone’s teeth should fit in their mouth without any spacing issues. Our tooth should not be twisted or rotated. The teeth of your upper jaw must slightly overlap the teeth of your lower jaw so that the sharp ridges of your molars fit into the groves of the opposite molar. Deviation from ideal occlusion is known as malocclusion.

Malocclusion Its Causes Symptoms Prevention And Treatments
Malocclusion Or Extra Teeth

Causes

  • If you use a pacifier after the age of 3 frequently, it can cause malocclusion
  • If you prolong the use of bottle feeding in early childhood
  • Some injuries which can cause misalignment of the jaws
  • If a person has a tumor in their mouth or jaw
  • If a person has abnormally shaped or impacted teeth
  • The inadequate dental care that results in improperly fitting dental filling, crowns, or braces
  • If someone has cleft lip or palate, it can also cause malocclusion
  • If a child sucks thumb in his/her childhood
  • Airway obstruction and potentially caused by allergies or by enlarged adenoids or tonsils

Symptoms

  • When your teeth are not getting alignment improperly, it is the start of malocclusion.
  • Alteration in the appearance of the face
  • If you are frequently biting your inner cheeks or tongue
  • Feeling discomfort while chewing or biting
  • If a person is having problems while speaking
  • If a person is breathing through the mouth rather than the nose

Prevention

Preventing the disorder should be difficult because malocclusion is mostly hereditary. If you are a parent, you can save your child from this disease by just stopping them from using pacifier frequently and after the age of 3. Many parents use to give pacifiers to their children when they cry to make them quiet because the noise of crying felt irritating to them, but you people are just providing birth to new dental disease in their children’s mouth.

As a parent, stop your children from getting addicted to the milk feeding bottles because some children get addicted to it and use the feeding bottles even after they get much older, which is a significant cause of malocclusion. Feeding of a bottle and sucking the nipple of the bottle gives a disorder shapes to your teeth. Stop your children from sucking their thumb because it also offers terrible forms to their teeth. Stay protected and take good care of your teeth, so they do not get injured because injuries lead to malocclusion.

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Treatment

Malocclusion is diagnosed through routine dental exams. A dentist will determine your teeth and do a dental X-ray if required to check that your teeth are aligned or not. However, people with mild malocclusion do not need any special treatment. If your malocclusion is severe, your dentist may refer you to an orthodontist. Then they will apply the best treatment procedure for you, some are mentioned following:

  • When a person’s teeth are in a severe form, the most common method for its treatment is the use of braces. The doctor will apply braces to your teeth for a specific period which will make your teeth in a proper form and improve the shape of your jaw.
  • If there are some that kind of teeth which are not coming in control and making the whole jaw worse by just being present at that place, the doctor can remove those teeth so it will not bother the other teeth and don’t make the condition worse.
  • Some teeth which are bothering other teeth by just their shape but not affecting the other teeth, then doctors can reshape them, bond them with others or a common method they can apply a cap on that particular tooth which is having a bad shape.
  • Doctors can also apply wires or plates to stabilize the jaw bone.

A Ypsilanti Dentist, Dr. Colleen Bullard, says that if the parents of a child take care of certain small things during of their child’s early days, you can prevent many oral problems from occurring, especially malocclusion because it starts at a very young age.