Braces how do rubber bands work

Your upper teeth and lower teeth should line up and fit together comfortably when you bite down. Some patients get overly excited about the power of rubber bands and mistakenly think that by doubling up on their bands they can move their teeth more quickly and shorten treatment times. Too much force, too quickly can damage tooth roots and actually stretch-out the amount of time it takes to move your teeth.

Wear your orthodontic elastic bands how you are instructed and you will move along without any problems. Choosing the colors of your elastic bands is an exciting part of the treatment process. Reaching a point where you are ready to use elastic bands also means you have arrived at one of your important treatment milestones.

Orthodontic elastic bands get you that much closer to achieving your healthy smile rewards! Then, you also have the bigger rubber bands that guide the teeth into their final position.

Braces and Invisalign both exert continuous pressure to gently and steadily move the teeth and jaws into place. Yet, they straighten the top and bottom teeth and jaws independently of one another. Ultimately, having proper alignment means your teeth fit together correctly when you bite down.

In certain cases, achieving this ideal relationship between the upper and lower arch requires using connective forces. Rubber bands can provide this force and give the system a little extra oomph to encourage teeth to shift in specific ways. Braces rubber bands look a lot like they belong at an office supply store.

We have tooth-colored rubber bands that will blend right in or if you want to go bold, we can do colored ones as well. Rubber bands for an underbite will go the opposite way and run from the lower front teeth to the upper back teeth.

Rubber bands can also be configured in a triangle, rectangle, across the front of the mouth or other formations. Their versatility is one of the things we love about them. You should also wear them when you sleep. Every morning, discard the previous day's elastics and replace them with fresh elastics from the packet we have provided for you.

If you play sports keep your elastics in unless you need to wear a mouth-guard. After removing your mouth-guard, put the elastics back in. You should change your elastics times a day, at the very least every 12 hours, even if they are not broken, because after a while they lose their strength and elasticity. If you have an overbite, the bands will run from the back of the lower jaw up to the front of the upper jaw. This will pull the lower jaw forward over time, allowing your teeth to bite down comfortably.

Conversely, the bands will run from the back of the upper jaw down to the front of the lower jaw to correct underbites. To get the best results, you should replace these bands every day and wear them as many hours as possible. In addition to getting these bands with traditional braces , you may also have them with Invisalign Clear Aligners.