Don’t be taken in by dentists offering a quick fix, cheap brace

Straight teeth and a beautiful smile are pleasing to the eye and make us feel more confident. But the OSI (Orthodontic Society of Ireland) needs to warn people, again, about the long-term harm of ‘quick fix’, supposedly ‘cosmetic’ dentistry treatments.

Patients who have undergone these heavily promoted, ‘smile make-over procedures’ have told OSI members that they were given incomplete, misleading or biased information prior to and during treatment.

Unfortunately, patients undergoing these ‘quick-fix treatments’ are also often unaware that they are being treated by dentists inexperienced in orthodontics, which is a highly specialised branch of dentistry. Some of these dentists have only a few extra hours of training in straightening teeth. Quick-fix treatments can leave teeth unstable, with the potential to relapse back to their original position. If a patient then attends for re-treatment, this can cause back-and-forth tipping of the roots that hold the teeth in place, which can put the long-term retention of these teeth in danger.