When should you start with orthodontic treatment? Of course, it’s best to start when your permanent dentition is present. Primary teeth fall out in early adolescence and therefore don’t need any orthodontic treatment. Orthodontics mainly influences your permanent dentition. At the age of 11 – 12 your milk teeth have been replaced by permanent teeth, that’s why a fair and honest treatment is only possible from that moment. If we start with orthodontics at the age of 11 to 12 the treatment duration is reduced – taking about one to two years – and orthodontic treatment almost ends up successfully in every case, especially when fixed appliances are used. In contrary early treatments take 3 to 4 years or even more and above all they end up unsuccessfully or the treatment is broken off at an early stage. Children are blamed unfairly for these problems because of the so-called lack of wearing their removable appliances sufficiently.
Children at primary school will be astonished to discover that fifty percent of their classmates wear removable appliances – but how can you explain this complete nonsense? If your orthodontist wants to earn a lot of money he has to try to enhance treatment duration – over a couple of years. There are two useful tricks: Starting orthodontics while children are 7 to 9 years old and using removable appliances. If you are clever, you won’t support early treatment: Please refuse the suggested treatment as long as you are at primary school and you still have your primary dentition! Of course there are a few exceptions: the crossbite – malocclusion of several incisors which occlude the wrong way around concerning their opposing teeth, or of the lower jaw moved sideways – and a few more rarely detected findings. There’s one thing you should know: When your orthodontist tells your parents about starting orthodontics “the earlier the better“ he hasn’t got on his mind to improve your individual treatment but to follow his own economic interests. Of course, we can understand them – who doesn’t want to earn a lot of money? But as a patient I wouldn’t support them. Most of the kids and teens benefit from orthodontics concerning the permanent dentition from the age of 11 to 12!