When you think about orthodontic treatment, straightening crooked teeth probably comes to mind first. But the scope of what an orthodontist can address goes far beyond simple aesthetics. Orthodontists are dental specialists trained to diagnose, prevent, and treat a wide range of dental and facial irregularities that affect how your teeth fit together, how you chew and speak, and even how your jaw functions.
At New Braunfels Braces, Dr. Alfonso and Dr. James VandeBerg help patients of all ages overcome orthodontic problems that impact their oral health, comfort, and confidence. Whether you're dealing with an obvious issue like crowded teeth or a less visible problem like an improper bite, our skilled team can develop a treatment plan tailored to your unique needs.
Let's explore the most common orthodontic problems and how treatment at New Braunfels Braces can help.
Crowded Teeth
Crowding is one of the most common reasons people seek orthodontic treatment. It occurs when there isn't enough space in the jaw for all the teeth to fit properly, causing them to overlap, twist, or push forward or backward.
Why Crowding Is a Problem
While crowded teeth are often a cosmetic concern, they also create real oral health challenges. Overlapping teeth are difficult to brush and floss effectively, allowing plaque and bacteria to accumulate in hard-to-reach areas. Over time, this increases your risk of cavities, gum disease, and bad breath.
Crowded teeth can also cause uneven wear patterns. When teeth don't meet properly, certain teeth bear more force than they should during chewing, leading to premature wear, chips, and even fractures.
How Orthodontic Treatment Helps
Braces and clear aligners like Invisalign can gradually shift teeth into proper alignment, creating the space needed for each tooth to sit in its correct position. In some cases, particularly severe crowding may require tooth extraction to create adequate space, but modern orthodontic techniques often allow us to expand the arch and avoid extractions.
Once teeth are properly aligned, maintaining good oral hygiene becomes much easier, and biting forces are distributed evenly across all teeth.
Spacing and Gaps
The opposite of crowding, spacing problems occur when there's too much room in the jaw, resulting in gaps between teeth. The most common gap is a diastema—the space between the two upper front teeth—but gaps can occur anywhere in the mouth.
Causes of Spacing Issues
Gaps between teeth can result from teeth that are small relative to jaw size, missing teeth (whether from extraction, injury, or congenital absence), abnormal tissue attachments (like a low frenum between the front teeth), or habits like thumb sucking that push teeth apart.
Why Treatment Matters
Beyond cosmetic concerns, gaps between teeth can allow food to become trapped, increasing decay risk. Missing teeth that aren't replaced can cause surrounding teeth to drift into the empty space, creating bite problems and making future tooth replacement more complicated.
Orthodontic treatment can close gaps by moving teeth together. If gaps are due to missing teeth, orthodontics can either close the space entirely or create ideal spacing for dental implants or bridges.
Concerned about crowding, gaps, or other alignment issues? Contact New Braunfels Braces or call (830) 632-5335 to schedule your complimentary consultation.
Overbite (Deep Bite)
An overbite, also called a deep bite, occurs when the upper front teeth overlap the lower front teeth too much vertically. While some overlap is normal and healthy, an excessive overbite can cause problems.
Signs and Symptoms
You might have an overbite if your upper teeth cover most or all of your lower teeth when you bite down, your lower teeth bite into the roof of your mouth or the gum tissue behind your upper teeth, you experience jaw pain or TMJ discomfort, or your lower front teeth appear worn or chipped.
Complications of Untreated Overbite
Severe overbites can cause lower teeth to wear down the backs of upper teeth or damage the gum tissue on the palate. They can also contribute to jaw joint problems and make the face appear shorter or less balanced.
Treatment Options
Orthodontic treatment for overbites may involve braces or Invisalign to reposition teeth, along with additional appliances or techniques to address the vertical relationship between the jaws. In children and teens whose jaws are still growing, treatment can guide jaw development to correct the overbite more easily.
Underbite
An underbite is the opposite of an overbite—the lower teeth sit in front of the upper teeth when the mouth is closed. This can result from an overgrown lower jaw, an undergrown upper jaw, or a combination of both.
Impact on Daily Life
Underbites can make biting and chewing difficult, particularly with front teeth. They often affect speech and can create facial imbalance, with the lower jaw appearing to protrude. Like other bite problems, underbites can contribute to TMJ dysfunction and uneven tooth wear.
Correcting an Underbite
Treatment depends on the severity and underlying cause. For children, early intervention can use growth modification appliances to encourage proper jaw development. For adults whose growth is complete, orthodontic treatment may be combined with jaw surgery in severe cases. However, many mild to moderate underbites can be corrected with braces or clear aligners alone.
Crossbite
A crossbite occurs when some upper teeth sit inside the lower teeth rather than outside them when you bite down. This can happen in the front teeth (anterior crossbite) or the back teeth (posterior crossbite), and it can affect one side of the mouth or both.
Why Crossbites Need Attention
Crossbites can cause asymmetric jaw growth, uneven wear on tooth enamel, gum recession on affected teeth, jaw pain and TMJ problems, and facial asymmetry that becomes more pronounced over time.
Because crossbites can influence how the jaw grows, they're particularly important to address in children. Early treatment can guide development and prevent more serious problems from developing.
Treatment Approaches
Treatment for crossbites often involves palatal expanders (particularly in children) to widen the upper jaw, braces or aligners to move teeth into proper position, and sometimes a combination of approaches depending on the specific situation.
Open Bite
An open bite exists when the upper and lower teeth don't meet when the mouth is closed, leaving a gap between them. This most commonly affects the front teeth (anterior open bite) but can also occur in the back teeth (posterior open bite).
Common Causes
Open bites often develop due to prolonged thumb sucking or pacifier use, tongue thrusting (pushing the tongue against the teeth when swallowing), mouth breathing, or skeletal growth patterns.
Functional Challenges
People with open bites often struggle to bite into foods with their front teeth—imagine trying to bite through a sandwich when your front teeth don't touch. Open bites can also affect speech, particularly sounds that require the tongue to touch the teeth.
Closing an Open Bite
Treatment typically involves braces or Invisalign to move teeth into proper alignment. If habits like tongue thrusting contribute to the problem, habit-breaking appliances or myofunctional therapy may be recommended. In severe cases or when skeletal factors are significant, jaw surgery may be necessary.
Don't let bite problems affect your quality of life.Schedule your free consultation at New Braunfels Braces or call (830) 632-5335 today.
Protruding Teeth
Protruding teeth—sometimes called "buck teeth"—occur when the upper front teeth angle outward excessively. This can result from genetics, thumb sucking or other oral habits, or an imbalance in jaw size.
Concerns with Protruding Teeth
Beyond the cosmetic impact, protruding front teeth are significantly more vulnerable to injury. Studies show that people with an overjet (horizontal protrusion) greater than 3mm have more than double the risk of dental trauma from falls, sports, and accidents.
Protruding teeth can also make it difficult to close the lips comfortably, leading to dry mouth and potential speech difficulties.
Bringing Teeth Back Into Alignment
Orthodontic treatment can retract protruding teeth into a more protected, aesthetically pleasing position. This typically involves braces or Invisalign, and sometimes headgear or other appliances to address underlying jaw discrepancies.
Misplaced Midline
The dental midline is the imaginary line between your two upper front teeth (and ideally, your two lower front teeth). When this line doesn't align with the center of your face, it's called a misplaced or deviated midline.
Why Midlines Matter
While minor midline discrepancies are common and may not require treatment, significant misalignment can indicate underlying bite problems, affect smile aesthetics, and suggest jaw asymmetry that might worsen over time.
Correcting Midline Deviation
Treatment focuses on moving teeth to align the dental midlines with each other and, ideally, with the facial midline. This may involve asymmetric treatment approaches—moving teeth more on one side than the other—to achieve proper alignment.
Impacted Teeth
A tooth becomes impacted when it can't erupt properly, usually because there isn't enough room or it's blocked by other teeth. While wisdom teeth are most commonly impacted, canines (the pointed teeth next to your front teeth) are the second most likely to become impacted.
Problems with Impacted Teeth
Impacted teeth can damage the roots of adjacent teeth, create cysts that damage the jawbone, cause pain and infection, and disrupt the alignment of other teeth.
Orthodontic Solutions
For impacted canines and some other teeth, orthodontic treatment can often bring the tooth into proper position. This typically involves creating space in the arch with braces, then working with an oral surgeon who exposes the impacted tooth and attaches a bracket. The orthodontist then gradually guides the tooth into its correct position.
Teeth That Erupted in the Wrong Position
Sometimes teeth erupt in unexpected locations—too far forward, too far back, rotated, or even in entirely the wrong spot in the mouth. This ectopic eruption can create functional and aesthetic problems.
Why It Happens
Ectopic eruption can result from crowding, early loss of baby teeth, extra teeth, or various developmental factors. Sometimes teeth erupt in such unusual positions that they're initially mistaken for extra teeth.
Guiding Teeth Into Place
Orthodontic treatment can move teeth from their incorrect positions into proper alignment. The earlier these problems are identified, the easier they often are to correct—which is one reason why the American Association of Orthodontists recommends all children have an orthodontic evaluation by age seven.
Early evaluation can make treatment easier and more effective. Contact New Braunfels Braces at (830) 632-5335 to schedule your child's complimentary consultation.
TMJ and Jaw Problems
The temporomandibular joints (TMJ) connect your lower jaw to your skull and are among the most complex joints in your body. When these joints don't function properly—a condition often called TMJ disorder or TMD—it can cause significant discomfort.
Symptoms of TMJ Problems
TMJ issues may cause jaw pain or tenderness, clicking or popping when opening or closing the mouth, difficulty opening the mouth wide, jaw locking, headaches and earaches, and facial pain.
The Orthodontic Connection
While TMJ disorders have multiple causes, bite misalignment is often a contributing factor. When teeth don't fit together properly, the jaw muscles work harder to bring them together, leading to strain and dysfunction.
Orthodontic treatment that corrects bite alignment can relieve stress on the TMJ and surrounding muscles. Many patients who undergo orthodontic treatment for other reasons find that their TMJ symptoms improve as their bite is corrected.
Teeth Worn From Grinding
Bruxism—the habit of grinding or clenching teeth—can cause significant damage over time. While orthodontics doesn't treat the grinding habit itself, the resulting tooth damage and bite changes often require orthodontic attention.
How Grinding Affects Teeth
Chronic grinding wears down tooth enamel, shortens teeth, and can flatten biting surfaces. Over time, this changes how teeth fit together, potentially creating or worsening bite problems.
The Role of Orthodontics
If grinding has caused bite changes or damaged teeth to the point where they need restoration, orthodontic treatment may be necessary to create proper alignment before or alongside restorative dental work. Additionally, correcting bite problems that cause teeth to meet incorrectly can sometimes reduce grinding.
Smile Aesthetics
Beyond specific dental problems, many people seek orthodontic treatment simply because they're unhappy with how their smile looks. This is a completely valid reason for treatment—confidence in your smile affects quality of life in meaningful ways.
Aesthetic Concerns We Address
Common aesthetic complaints include teeth that appear crooked, uneven, or twisted, smiles that look too "gummy," teeth that appear too small or too large, asymmetric smiles, and overall smile harmony with facial features.
Customized Treatment Planning
At New Braunfels Braces, Dr. Alfonso and Dr. VandeBerg take a comprehensive approach to smile design. We consider not just tooth position, but also how your smile relates to your lips, face shape, and overall appearance. The goal is creating a smile that looks natural and beautiful—uniquely right for you.
Treatment Options at New Braunfels Braces
Whatever orthodontic problem you're facing, we offer multiple treatment options to address it effectively.
Traditional Metal Braces
Metal braces remain the gold standard for orthodontic treatment, capable of correcting virtually any orthodontic problem. Today's metal braces are smaller, more comfortable, and more efficient than ever before.
Clear Braces
For patients who want the effectiveness of traditional braces with a more discreet appearance, clear ceramic braces use tooth-colored brackets that blend with your natural teeth.
Invisalign Clear Aligners
Invisalign offers a virtually invisible way to straighten teeth using custom-made, removable clear aligners. It's an excellent option for many orthodontic problems, particularly for adults and teens who prefer a less noticeable treatment.
Your Complimentary Consultation
The first step in solving any orthodontic problem is understanding exactly what you're dealing with. At New Braunfels Braces, we offer complimentary consultations that include diagnostic records, a thorough examination by Dr. Alfonso or Dr. VandeBerg, and a clear discussion of your treatment options.
If treatment is recommended, we can often begin the process that same day—because we know your time is valuable.
Ready to address your orthodontic concerns? Contact New Braunfels Braces today to schedule your complimentary consultation, or call (830) 632-5335. Our office at 385 Landa Street in New Braunfels proudly serves families throughout New Braunfels, Gruene, and the surrounding Texas Hill Country. Let us help you achieve the healthy, beautiful smile you deserve!