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Dr. Holly Austgen, DDS of Southeast Family Dental in Indianapolis, Indiana talks about Six Months Smiles, what they are and how they work. Dr. Austgen also explains how your dentist determines whether or not you are a good candidate for Six Month Smiles.

https://youtu.be/q7bR1wDCXQQ 

If you can not see the embedded video above please use the following link: Are Six Month Smiles right for me?

Transcript

Hi, my name is Dr. Holly Austgen from Southeast Family Dental and today I’d like to talk to you about a service that we provide for our patients. And that service is called Six Month Smiles. So a lot of patients come in wanting to know, what is Six Month Smiles? Will it work for them?

Six Month Smiles is considered adult cosmetic braces. It’s really designed for simple cases – things where we don’t need a lot of movement. Maybe just fixing some crowded teeth, some spacing, something really small. It generally applies to patients who maybe had orthodontics when they were younger and they didn’t wear their retainers so they just need some small adjustments to get them back.

One of the major benefits of Six Month Smiles is the length of treatment time. The average treatment is six months, hence the name Six Month Smiles. However, treatment can range anywhere from four to nine months depending on the case.

So how do you know if you would be a good candidate for Six Month Smiles? Well that’s where we come in. When you come to the office, we’ll do what we call a records appointment. We’re going to take x-rays of your teeth, we’ll check for any areas of decay and then we’ll see what kind of movement that you need and see if you’ll qualify.

Okay, so let’s say that we’ve determined that you do qualify for Six Month Smiles. Then what’s your next step? What you’ll do is you’ll come in and we’ll take another set of impressions. At that point, we’ll send your impressions to a specialized facility that will prepare the brackets on to models of your teeth so we’ll know exactly where to place them when you come in.

Next, you’ll come in and we’ll place brackets on each tooth individually and then we’ll put the wire on just like you’re used to. So once the brackets and wires are placed initially, you’ll come back to the office every three to four weeks for some minor adjustments and it gives us an opportunity to see how your case is progressing. Like we said, the average treatment time is somewhere between four and nine months.

So after you and your dentist are happy with the position of your teeth, we’ll take another set of impressions so that we can make retainers for you. We ask that you wear your retainers every night. That way we can keep the position just like we have them.

So if you’re a patient who’s not happy with the way that your teeth are aligned – they’re either a little crowded, a little spaced, and you want to know if we can help you out – give us a call at Southeast Family Dental where we’ll be happy to give you an evaluation to see if you qualify.

Thank you and remember, here at Southeast Family Dental, we love to make you smile.