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Back to school… for your smile!

Advertisements are popping up everywhere, and school supplies are hitting the shelves. As you prepare your child to head back to school, you likely have a list of needed supplies from schools and teachers. But, did you know that if your child wears Invisalign or braces, they need to help their smiles head back to school?

5 things your child needs for heading back to school for their smile!

1. A travel-sized dental care kit

Most students won’t have time to brush their teeth after meals, so a small kit of home care items can be kept in a child’s backpack or locker.

For example, small toothbrush floss can help braces patients when food gets trapped underneath the wires of the races.

Invisalign patients can also benefit from a travel toothbrush to clean their aligners and ensure the food does not get trapped underneath them.

2. A “Christmas tree” or proxy brush

This tiny brush with a shape like a Christmas tree has soft bristles and is meant to go underneath the wire between the brackets for hard-to-reach cleaning.

 Parents can pick these up from our office, and many drugstores also have them.

3. Orthodontic Wax

Try wax for poking wires or brackets that irritate the gums.

This braces' classic can be handy in a pinch when braces are irritating the inside cheeks or gums, causing a mouth sore.

Also, if you have a loose wire, you can use wax to help stabilize it until you can come to see us for repair.

Be sure to ask us for extra wax next time you come to see us; school nurses will also occasionally have someone in stock.

4. A backup case for your Invisalign

So many parents fear that their child may accidentally throw away their Invisalign aligners during lunch at school.

Unfortunately, we’ve seen this all too often! As many lunchroom workers and teachers will tell you, digging aligners out of the trash is no fun. 

For this reason, we often recommend a backup case for school.

 It keeps the main Invisalign case safe and has less risk of losing, but your child will always have a place to put aligners at lunch. It does not have to be an official Invisalign trademark case; a simple retainer case will do. Some patients decorate the outside of their cases, making them cute and custom works of art. The lunchbox or backpack is an excellent place for this item.

5. A mouthguard, if your child plays sports! 

With that, the school season also brings fall sports.

Some contact sports, like football and soccer, pose the risk of injury to your teeth, so mouthguards are often recommended. 

If your child wears braces, they will need a specific type of mouthguard. We have these available in our office for you at no additional cost.

Bonus tips:

Be sure to talk with your child about their braces or Invisalign care at school. For example, some patients are self-conscious about taking out their Invisalign aligners to eat lunch. You can help them by talking about solutions that would work for them. You can also assure them that Invisalign treatment is more popular than ever before, so they likely will not be the only ones wearing Invisalign.

Be sure to grab great face photos for your back-to-school pics that can serve as timestamps of your child’s orthodontic treatment. You will love looking back over the school year and seeing how much their smile has improved!

What other tips can you suggest for orthodontic patients heading back to school? Leave us a comment and let us know.

Hester & Morris Movie Day 2022

We are back y’all!

After a two-year break, Dr. Hester and Dr. Morris were excited to bring back our annual patient appreciation movie day this past month. 

Our event was held on July 1, 2022, and we invited our braces and Invisalign patients to join us on that Friday morning for a free movie! 

Our team was there bright and early that Friday morning, ready to welcome our patients as they came in, got their movie snacks from the concession stands, and showed which movie they wanted to attend. 

We wore adorable blue T-shirts with buzz light year flashing a fantastic smile! This year the movies we showed for patient appreciation every day were “Lightyear and “Minions”: The rise of Gru.” 

We were so happy to be able to bring this event back for our patients as a way to show our appreciation for their continued support. We genuinely love what we do in creating beautiful smiles, but we wouldn’t be who we are without our wonderful patient families. 

Many of our families stopped for pictures with our minions and were happy to be there. Due to the pandemic, for many of those in attendance at our movie day, this was the first movie they had been to in the last couple of years. So it was good to be back!

With over 500 in attendance, it was a super fun morning at the movies! The Minion movie was definitely the favorite! But, who doesn't love those little guys? Especially when they have braces?!!

We are very hopeful to continue to make this a yearly event for our patients and families. So again, we thank you for supporting Hester and Morris Orthodontics. Because of you, we are South GA’s #1 orthodontic provider!

Beware of the danger of DIY teeth aligners.

You’ve likely heard and seen advertisements for the type of orthodontics you can purchase through the mail without ever having to leave your home. These companies promise a cheaper price and shorter length of treatment as well as the convenience of not coming into a provider's office. While these companies spend a lot of time and money marketing to consumers, these ads often fail to mention the problems of DIY teeth straightening or the lasting effects of trying to do treatment on your own at home.

Cheaper isn’t always better! And in the end, you may find that it was not worth it.

Here are a few things we find concerning DIY teeth straightening treatment.

1. No exams. Almost every orthodontist will offer a comprehensive exam for patients to check the dental status of their teeth. Being able to get a closer look helps us better able establish a treatment plan. 

At Hester Morris Orthodontics, we offer this exam at no cost to you. It’s important to us that our doctors both meet and thoroughly examine the patient in order to be able to prescribe the appropriate treatment methods that will best improve their smiles. 

We also take complementary x-rays to show crowding underneath the gums that a patient cannot see with their eyes, including extra teeth or missing teeth, or extremely crowded teeth. Failure to examine a patient could possibly mean failure to see ongoing dental issues that should be addressed prior to beginning orthodontic treatment.

2. No scans. Patients who elect to have DIY teeth straightening are sent a do-it-yourself impression kit to make a model of their own teeth. They then send the impression to the company for the exchange of clear aligners that are modeled to that impression.

 Not only is the impression process uncomfortable, but it is also very difficult to obtain a perfect impression without dental training and experience. (Have you ever heard of a gag reflex? Yuck!) Plainly put, unless you know what you’re doing it’s going to be hard to get a very exact impression of your teeth.

 Here at Hester and Morris, we no longer do these impressions but rely more on updated technology in the form of digital scanning. These scans of a patient’s teeth are far more accurate than the traditional impression process, making the fit of our Invisalign aligners much more consistent with the patient’s actual teeth resulting in a better fit. Getting a digital impression from our Itero scanner is also very easy to do. No holding your breath and no gagging!

3. No continuous doctor’s care. While it’s true that your DIY aligner treatment may be supervised, you have no way of knowing the number of cases they take on and just who exactly is responsible for your care. You should always trust your smile to a trained orthodontist. They have the highest level of training, education, and experience necessary to straighten teeth and align jaws properly. You can only see so much from an impression, and digital or virtual care should never completely replace in-office visits. This unfortunately can sometimes result in cases where there’s permanent damage to a patient’s gums or even tooth loss.

While some people are choosing to use DIY aligner treatments because of the cost and convenience, many are realizing that they compromise the quality of their care and the satisfaction of their results. 

 No matter what type of orthodontic treatment you’re seeking, it’s important to understand that it’s the relationship you develop with your orthodontic provider that makes the difference in your results. You can spend a lot of time and money trying to do it yourself, but in the end, you’re missing out on the personal relationships, the education, and the expertise that helps you make the most out of your orthodontic care. You don’t have to sacrifice your smile to save a little money. Come in for a complimentary consultation at Hester and Morris Orthodontics and find out how we can help you improve your smile and your life!

And we’d love to discuss your treatment options with you! If you’d like to make an appointment click here. We would love to help you live life smiling!