Dr Hong Ping Pua

We can pretty much offer all dental treatment required now. Anything that is very elective or optional we will try to wait for a little while because we prioritise all urgent cases and those with essential treatment needs. We are pretty much open for full dental services.

Actually, the full eruption of wisdom teeth is less of a concern. It is the non-eruption or partial eruption of a wisdom tooth that is important because they are there but we are unable to see it and they are not straight. So they can be impacted sideways, against the rest of the teeth. All in all, crowded teeth can be caused by so many different factors that this is just one of them. It is important to have it checked out and take an x-ray if needed or advised by your dentist.

You can, but you can get very tired and it could be quite uncomfortable as you have to deal with pain from extraction and the pain from the bonding of brackets, which is the ulcer and all that. Subsequently, pain from the effect of teeth moving, it's almost having everything all at one go. Some people opt for that as they think that they would just take a few days off work and be done. We also know teenagers can cope with this a lot better, they tend to heal very well. To them, extraction is simpler so the recovery is less painful. It definitely does depend on the individual as well.

Most of the time, yes. Biting refers to how your upper and lower teeth come together. If you are lucky you can just wear the plastic aligners which are preprogrammed to move your teeth to bite itself nicely. More severe cases might require wearing elastic bands and by being able to wear the band, it provides more treatment opportunities for Invisalign such as correcting the bite. For more severe cases, it might require surgery to shift the entire jaw itself.

Wisdom teeth usually erupt between 15 to 21 years old. But you don't necessarily have to wait for the wisdom tooth to come out. In fact, before you have your wisdom tooth removed or any sort of teeth removed, or any extensive dental work, and you have the intention of doing braces. I would suggest you go see a dentist first to consult on the braces suitability. It's possible sometimes that we can extract the wisdom tooth or keep it as part of the braces treatment plan.

For metal braces, people can be allergic to metal components such as nickel. However, they do have latex-free elastics for those with an allergy. For aligners, I have not seen anyone with a true allergy, a true allergy means you will be excluded from it and I believe you will be excluded from the clear aligners as well.

The one that you get after you are done with braces is usually from a local lab, just a standard hard plastic. The Invisalign aligners themselves are different, they are more flexible and they have small features built into the aligners. This means they don’t contact the teeth evenly; they contact the teeth at certain points more than the others because they want more movement at these specific pressure points. That is how they work very well.

So, TMJ stands for the temporomandibular joint, which is the joint that your lower jaw attaches to the skull. It is actually quite common among adults. For anyone who actively grinds their teeth at night due to stress, it can happen. When you press the area and it can feel extra painful. So those who have issues when they sleep, it's also worse in the morning so that's another way to tell. Secondly, they may not be able to open their mouth very wide before coming into a painful position or experiencing jaw pain.

Number one, don’t self-diagnose too much, because if you self-diagnose wrongly, you will treat yourself wrongly as well. Ok, so what do the different classes mean? Class I just means that everything is in perfect order class II is where your upper teeth are more in front than your lower teeth class III is reversed, so the lower teeth are in front of the upper teeth. Class I, II, and III can be treated with Invisalign, not a problem.

So, the removable orthodontic appliance is for kids that can wear and remove. Usually, they are done to correct any sort of movement identified earlier. So, instead of having full-on braces, let's say if you have one tooth that is too far in, we ask you to wear this for maybe a couple of months to get the effect. It is actually similar to Invisalign, so yes it is still in use.

It depends on the teeth of each individual. For example, if it helps the overall condition of your teeth, the braces can be put under the braces, if it doesn't I will not do so.

At the moment, Invisalign aligners are agreed to be able to treat many conditions. Again, it depends on what kind of crowding you are talking about. But, if it's minimum to moderate crowding, there should be no problem. In fact, sometimes it may even be more effective than braces. For severe crowding, what it can induce is, some teeth can be very far away, sort of half-buried under the gums and all that. It does not mean that you cannot do Invisalign but you may need some extra work on these teeth, like attaching a wire or rubber band just to pull the tooth out.

The first step is to establish that your teeth are healthy. Because it is harder to put braces onto unhealthy teeth, any crown or implant. Once the teeth are healthy we will clean them and then we will use a chemical agent to clean the teeth and treat the surface to allow the cement from the braces to glue onto the teeth. Then we harden it with a blue light. Once it is on, it is very strong. Because it is cement, it is still subjected to deterioration over time and a very hard impact can still scrap it off.

I can tell u it will definitely be painful with traditional braces, there is no way around it. Some people have tried using wax, so they place it around the brackets, so you just take one block by one block and leave it on where it will last for a couple of hours, and they say that it helps them. In maybe two weeks’ time, your skin ulcer will heal and harden like a bruise and then you don’t feel it as much anymore. Ultimately, it does depend a bit on the tolerance of the individual.

Firstly, bad breath can be due to many reasons. And actually the most common cause of bad breath will be dehydration. Not drinking enough water. Secondly, it could be due to food getting stuck in teeth and not getting cleaned out properly when you are brushing. So, does braces help with bad breath? Actually they can make it worse. Because more food can get stuck in them. The exception is that your teeth are so crowded that you have trouble cleaning them properly, then you get braces and you can clean your teeth properly, then yes that helps.