Roos Orthodontics Treatment Coordinator Alisha, with one of our littlest patients-in-waiting.
At Roos Orthodontics we truly value your time. All of our lives are so crammed with schedules and appointments and we work hard to accommodate the many different requirements of our patients and their families. Picking children up from school and bringing them to our office is no simple task – especially if the appointment is very short. For our youngest patients-in-waiting, this may seem particularly unnecessary. After all – they aren’t yet in braces so what is the purpose of these observation/recare appointments? Here are some of the reasons keeping these is so necessary.
Observation or recare visits are scheduled for orthodontic patients who are either not yet quite ready for braces (where we may be waiting for a tooth or two to erupt) or have had a first phase of treatment already and are waiting for their remaining permanent teeth to come in so they can finish their orthodontic treatment. Your Treatment Manager will often will take a progress x-ray at this appointment to help evaluate your child’s dental development.
There are three things we look for when your son or daughter is in our chair.
1: If your child has completed a first phase of treatment and is currently wearing a removable retainer, we like to check the condition of those. Their importance in keeping the corrected teeth in place until the remaining permanent teeth erupt is very important in order not to compromise the work already done. We also like to reinforce appliance compliance with your child at this appointment.
If your child is wearing a space maintainer designed to preserve the space necessary for the eruption of a permanent tooth after the corresponding tooth is lost early, we will use this time to check on this too.
2: This appointment also allows us to evaluate the loss of primary teeth and the eruption of the permanent replacements. Losing primary teeth on time and in the right order can help the permanent teeth come in straighter. If we notice that a baby tooth is not falling out on time, or if we identify in an x-ray that the permanent teeth are headed in the wrong direction, we usually recommend that a patient see their family dentist to get the baby tooth in question removed.
It also gives us the opportunity to monitor your child’s growth and development to try and time any jaw corrective therapy that might be required.
Although this evaluation doesn’t take much time to do, ignoring any developing problems can add months or years to a patient’s orthodontic treatment.
3: This recare appointment gives Dr. Roos and your Treatment Coordinator the opportunity to discuss the treatment plan going forward based on what we have observed, to help ensure an excellent orthodontic result in the end. At Roos Orthodontics we work hard to create a fun and caring atmosphere alongside our state of the art technology and procedures. Bringing your child to these twice annual (free) appointments, helps to build a relationship between your family and our team, making the transition to actually wearing braces less overwhelming for your young patient.
Although these orthodontic observation/recare appointments are short, and you may be called in to several as your child’s mouth progresses towards the optimum stage for the beginning of their orthodontic treatment, we believe they are as important as any appointment they’ll ever have.
At what age should your child have their first orthodontic appointment?
Call our office today to schedule your complimentary consultation with Dr. Roos and one of our Treatment Coordinators.