How Can I Prevent Teeth Shifting?

Teeth shifting happens for several reasons. But regardless of why your teeth shift, these subtle changes can cause more significant oral health problems. For these reasons, correcting your shifting teeth becomes more important than just for improving your self-confidence when you smile.

Why Your Teeth Shift

Teeth shift because they lose the support they need from your bones and gums. As you age, your teeth lose strength, too. So even if you had braces in youth, the aging forces the shifting to occur.

Your bones holding teeth in place loses its density or shrinks over the years. This gives your teeth the ability to loosen and drift. Spaces from missing teeth also provide space for your teeth to shift. So teeth move to the area of least resistance, into that space.

Wearing crowns, bridges, fillings and other restorative dental appliances provide an opportunity for some tooth movement. So do your chewing, teeth grinding and other repetitive movements. Gum disease quietly progresses before you notice problems, pulling your gums away and enabling your teeth to rotate and misalign.

How to Prevent Teeth Shifting

The best means of preventing teeth shifting is through your dentist’s advice. If your dentist provides dental appliances like a retainer, ensure you follow his instructions and wear it as you should. Retainers work well to prevent teeth from shifting.

To prevent the bone loss that leads to teeth changing position and alignment, you need regular cleanings. Your dental hygienist provides these with each dental visit. Missing teeth also cause shifting problems, so to keep your healthy teeth in place you need quality preventive dental care.

A night guard keeps you from grinding your teeth at night, a big cause of teeth misalignment. This also helps you relieve headaches and other pain related to TMJ while keeping your teeth in place.

Simply taking good care of your teeth is the best line of defense against tooth movement. You need to brush your teeth twice daily and floss at least once each day. You also need to visit your dentist twice yearly for preventive care and important treatments. During your dental visits, the dentist checks for signs of tooth movement and other problems like gum disease.

If you are experiencing teeth shifting, your dentist provides multiple solutions and treatments, such as clear aligner trays. Invisalign clear aligner trays correct your teeth alignment like braces, but with greater comfort and self-confidence. Lumineers provide a cosmetic smile correction option able to help some people correct their smile concerns.

Maintaining Your Best Smile

Maintaining your best, straightest smile is a partnership between you and your dentist’s office. You need twice-yearly professional cleanings, exams, and other dental services:

• Routine dental exams

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