Bass Orthodontics

This patient had a large space between her upper central teeth, caused by the thick gum between these teeth. Her upper front teeth were also low in relation to her upper lip, which can be seen in her picture, giving a “gummy” smile appearance. This was resolved with fixed upper and lower braces.

This patient had severely crowded upper and lower teeth, to the extent that some of the adult teeth did not have room to grow in. The teeth were brought into a good alignment using fixed upper and lower braces.

This patient had crowded teeth, giving rise to prominent upper lateral incisors, with central incisors which were backwards sloping. Fixed braces, used to bring the central incisors forward and the lateral incisors back, gave a great aesthetic result as well as improving the bite.

Sometimes the upper jaw is too narrow causing two main problems. Upper crowding, caused by lack of room for the teeth to grow in, and bite problems. In this case, the back teeth were in “cross-bite” on the patient’s left side; the upper teeth were inside the lower teeth. A fixed expander was used to widen the upper jaw, resolving the cross-bite and crowding.

Quite often upper front teeth appear prominent because the lower jaw is further back compared to the upper jaw and the rest of the face. Our removable “Dynamax” brace orthopaedically enhanced the growth of the lower jaw in this patient and improved her profile by bringing the nose, lips and chin into harmony with each other. In addition, the upper teeth no longer appear prominent.

Similar to the previous case, this young male patient had a small lower jaw. Enhancing the growth of the lower jaw and strengthening the chin can be even more important for a young man. This was also achieved with a “Dynamax” orthopaedic brace.

This patient had an upper jaw which was too far back compared to the lower jaw, giving the appearance of a prominent lower jaw and a flat upper lip. A removable brace, worn at night, was used to bring the upper jaw forward, restoring harmony to the upper and lower jaws, which in turn balances the appearance of her lips.

Similar to the previous case, this patient had an under-developed upper jaw giving rise to the characteristic “under-bite”; where the lower front teeth are in front of the upper teeth, the reverse of the normal relationship. Again, this was corrected with a night brace to bring the upper jaw forward into the correct relationship with the lower.

Occasionally braces alone cannot correct the smile in a non-growing patient and we work closely with a surgeon to get the best results possible. In this case, surgery was required to move the lower jaw back, bringing the chin to the middle and the upper jaw forward. Fixed braces were used to put the teeth in their ideal positions.