There are many reasons why teeth can become crooked and there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. They can be genetic influences, jaw growth deformities, patient habits, obstructed airways, chronic mouth breathing and other serious oral health conditions.
While some of these factors are beyond our control and braces or other types of orthodontic treatment may be necessary to correct crooked teeth. Orthodontics with braces has been used for decades to straighten teeth in early teens when all the permanent teeth have appeared. While the temptation may be to wait until your child is in their teen years to begin orthodontic treatment, early child orthodontic treatment can be beneficial in many cases, for example, space maintainer and myofunctional plates.
This patient came for orthodontic treatment at 15 years old, with crowding and anterior crossbite. Early orthodontic intervention is not an option because of age and the cause of crowding - anodontia. Anodontia is a genetic or congenital (hereditary) absence of one or several temporary or permanent teeth. This patient has two lower front teeth missing genetically, which means there are tow more teeth in the top jaw. To make the upper teeth and lower teeth match each other, extractions of two upper teeth were necessary for this orthodontic case. The patient was really happy with the final result - a nice and straight smile!