DIY ortho poses a ‘critical’ danger to public health

DIY orthodontics is a one size fits all approach to reshaping and altering the appearance of your mouth. Often this is done without seeing a dentist and simply by using a 3D scan of your mouth to make aligners, which are then posted to you. This can cause a critical danger to people’s health, according to the latest episode of The Oral Health Podcast.

In the first of a two-part series on the rise of direct-to-consumer orthodontics, the Oral Health Foundation presents the many pitfalls and highlights severe concerns around the growing trend.

Karen Coates, an oral health educator and registered dental nurse describes how DIY orthodontics can cause long-term and irreparable damage to the mouth, jaw, and gums – and often leads to people going away unhappy and in a poorer state of health than before treatment. This can include everything from pain in eating to needing surgery to correct past mistakes.

Karen said: “This is not simple treatment. It cannot be done overnight. Step back and think. Would I let someone who was not qualified do fillings on me? Orthodontics is the same, it really is a feat of engineering. You have to rotate teeth, you are pushing them back and pushing them forward, but you don’t want all of them to move”.

The podcast discussed how orthodontists will give you a realistic look at what can be done and if you go DIY, you will not have the same level of care during and after the treatment. The Oral Health Podcast is available to download and stream on all major platforms.

From: https://www.dentalhealth.org/news/diy-ortho-poses-a-critical-danger-to-public-health