At Swords Orthodontics, this is a question we get asked a lot, but after an enquiry from a Balgriggan orthodontic patient, I figured I'd put a blog post up about common reasons why you might have gaps between the teeth. In an ideal situation, there usually aren’t any spaces between teeth in the same jaw. That said, not everybody’s teeth are ideal - that's why you might want to see an orthodontist - and there are loads of reasons where you can get spaces between teeth, and the easiest way to find out is to go to your orthodontist and ask him/her. Here are a few situations, and we can quickly find out if any of them apply to you, and give you the options for treating them.
- Small teeth
- Big jaws
- Broken teeth
- Abnormally shaped teeth
- Missing teeth
- Extra teeth that are hidden (buried) in the jawbone that stop teeth moving together the way they naturally would
- Teeth that are in the wrong place, especially ones that are still in the jawbone and haven’t come through into the mouth the way they’re supposed to, or when they’re supposed to
- Teeth that are in the right place but are tipped or tilted into the wrong position
- Diseases of the gums or jaw bones or lips
- Unusual position of the tongue where it pushes the teeth apart
The list gets a lot longer if you include situations where there are spaces between the teeth during orthodontic treatment – as there’ll often be one tooth moving this way or that way with a space on one side or the other or both until it moves into the right position.
In future blogs, I’ll talk about some of these situations and things that we can do about them – either with orthodontics or a combination of orthodontics and other areas of dentistry.