 |
|
Ortho Dictionary
Choose a glossary:
- Appliance: Anything your orthodontist attaches to your teeth, which moves your teeth or changes the shape of your jaws.
- Archwire: The metal wire that acts as a track to guide your teeth along as they move. It is changed periodically throughout treatment as your teeth move to their new positions.
- Band: A metal ring that wraps around the crown of a molar tooth, allowing strong anchorage and resistance to becoming loose with chewing.
- Bond: The seal created by orthodontic cement that holds your appliances in place.
- Bracket: A metal or ceramic part cemented ("bonded") to your tooth that holds your archwire in place.
- Coil Spring: A spring that fits between your brackets and over your archwire that has the ability to either open or close space between your teeth.
- Elastic (Rubber Band): A small rubber band that is hooked between different points on your braces to provide pressure to move your teeth into a better bite.
- O-Ring: The rubber band that fits around your bracket to hold the archwire in place. They come in a variety of colors.
- Headgear: Headgear uses an external wire apparatus known as a face-bow to gently influence the growth of your upper jaw, or move your upper back teeth into better positions. The force is applied to the face-bow by a spring-loaded neck strap. The neck straps have a safety release that disconnects if the face-bow is pulled or snagged.
- Headgear Tube: A very small cylindrical tube that is attached to the band on your upper molars. The inner bow of the face-bow portion of your headgear fits into it.
- Hook: A welded or removable arm to which elastics are attached.
- Tie Wire: A thin wire that holds your archwire into your bracket to provide more force to rotate a tooth.
- Lip-Bumper: A lip-bumper is a thick wire attached to a molded piece of plastic. The lip bumper holds back the molars on your lower jaw to provide more space for your other lower teeth.
- Mouth-guard: A device that protects your mouth from injury when you participate in sports or rigorous activities.
- Expander: An appliance that expands (widens) the jaws.
- Retainer: An appliance that is worn after your braces are removed to hold your teeth in their new positions. Some retainers are removable and others are bonded to the tongue-side of several teeth.
- Separator (or Spacers): For children, small rubber rings are used to create space between your back teeth before bands are attached. For adults, brass wire separators are often required instead, as a result of higher bone density.
- Continuous Tie-Wire: A fine wire that is carefully tied around your brackets from one bracket to the next, to not only hold the archwire in place, but also to hold individual teeth in contact with each other.
- Relief-wax: Relief-wax is a soft wax that is used to temporarily cover parts of your braces, to help stop your appliances from irritating your lips, inner checks, and gums.
- Banding: The process of fitting and cementing orthodontic bands to teeth.
- Bonding: The process of attaching brackets or other small attachments to teeth.
- Cephalometic X-ray: An X-ray image of the head, which shows the relative positions of the face, jaws, and teeth.
- Conference: A meeting with Dr. Fleming to discuss an orthodontic treatment plan.
- Debanding: The process of removing cemented orthodontic bands from teeth.
- Debonding: The process of removing cemented orthodontic brackets from teeth.
- Impression: The process of placing a soft material over the teeth that sets to become firm, and forms a mold. These impressions have plaster poured into them to form study models of the teeth.
- Invisalign®: An alternative to traditional braces that straightens your teeth with a series of clear custom-molded aligners. Invisalign can correct some, but not all, orthodontic problems.
- Panoramic X-ray: An X-ray image of the teeth and jaws which "pans" completely from left to right, providing a complete panoramic view of the teeth and jaws.
|
