Dr. Teertha Karnakar

Being a second-generation orthodontist, I grew up watching my father transform smiles with braces. I remember this one particular incident when a man, much older than my father, touched his feet and cried. It was because his daughter, who was rejected several times owing to her gummy smile, was finally getting married after her orthodontic treatment. I also vividly remember this other incident, where a young aspiring airhostess was rejected by a top airline company because of her crooked teeth and how just within a year of orthodontic intervention she was able to land the same job. These, and several other incidents showed me how powerful a beautiful smile can be and how important it is to our personalities, self-confidence, health, relationships and success. And I wanted to be able to do just that – create beautiful smiles. So at 18 when I joined dental school I was pretty much focused on becoming an orthodontist.

Orthodontics is extremely challenging and that’s what I love the most about it. Unlike other fields of dentistry, you can see the results only after a year or sometimes longer because that’s how long your teeth take to move. Hence it’s important to have a proper treatment plan in hand because one wrong step might take months to rectify.

It has a bit of Physics – because you need to calculate how every degree of bend you put into that wire will affect tooth movement. It has a bit of Chemistry -because the new generation of orthodontic wires have varied properties, did you know that some of them actually get activated by increase in temperature once placed inside your mouth? And that is why you can indulge in a bit of ice cream or anything cold to ease the pain as the decrease in temperature reduces the force. And off course, there’s Biology because at the end we are trying to move teeth and we need to measure and exert the right amount of pressure to move teeth without causing any damage.

There is something new being invented in the field of Orthodontics every single day. With the advent of CAD CAM-based technology aligners, custom-made brackets, and robots bending your archwires for you -this really is perfection at its best. Not only does this save chairside time, it also ensures a more precise end result.

Parents who have had orthodontic treatment done couple of years back and bring in their children are surprised to see how comfortable the new generation of orthodontic brackets are and how fuss free the treatment is.

We hardly ever extract teeth in our practice anymore unless absolutely necessary. The newer treatment protocol is to be more conservative and expand arches to align teeth.

Another huge change that I have seen is the death of the adage “braces are meant for children”. We have several adult patients opting for orthodontic treatment now. In fact, 50% of my patients are adults who could not get treated earlier on in life. This could be due to increased dental health awareness in the public and mostly due to the new range of “invisible” orthodontic treatments involving the use of aligners and lingual braces.

Aligners, lingual braces, conventional braces and functional appliances- we have you completely covered. And we provide the best of all three. Aligners, and lingual braces are very popular with teenagers and adults. For younger children we usually go in for the conventional braces or functional appliances for growth modulation.

Aligners and lingual braces are the popular and preferred choices for adult patients. However, aligners are restrictive in the kind of tooth movements they can bring about and are therefore not prescribed for all cases. Customized lingual braces tend to be much more expensive than conventional braces and thus in certain cases which are not indicated for aligners and where cost is a concern, the patient would go in for conventional ceramic braces which are aesthetically less visible and rarely for metal braces.

1. I am too old to wear braces – you are never too old to get your teeth straightened. Yes, the tooth movement might be slower than it would be at a younger age. In fact, if done right, orthodontic tooth movement can actually improve the bone level.
2. I am too young to wear braces – yes we always put braces on permanent teeth and hence the misconception about visiting an orthodontist after all your permanent teeth have erupted. However, certain cases require early intervention to correct the ways in which our jaws grow. This is called a Phase-I Orthodontic treatment and is more of a preventive measure to avoid much severe malocclusions later.