Adult Orthodontics

Teeth move throughout life, which is both why adult treatment works and why so many people find their teeth less straight at forty than at twenty. The biology does not stop; it just slows.

What is actually different

Bone remodels more slowly in an adult than in a growing teenager, so the same movement generally takes longer. Growth also cannot be used: in a child, a jaw discrepancy can sometimes be guided as the face develops, and in an adult the teeth are moved within the jaws you already have.

What is not different is the outcome. Teeth move at any age provided the bone and gums supporting them are healthy.

Gum health comes first

This is the single biggest difference in practice. Moving teeth through bone that is already being lost to periodontal disease makes the loss worse. Active gum disease is treated and stabilised before orthodontics begins, not alongside it.

Adults are also more likely to arrive with crowns, bridges, implants and old fillings. Each affects the plan — an implant, in particular, does not move, because it is fused to bone rather than held in a ligament.

Why adults treat

Appearance is the common reason, and a perfectly good one. But crowded teeth are harder to clean and collect plaque where a brush cannot reach, and an uneven bite loads some teeth far harder than others. Both are functional arguments that hold independently of how it looks.

Relapse

A large share of adult cases are people who had braces as teenagers and stopped wearing retainers. That is worth saying without judgement, because the lesson applies to this round too: retention is permanent, not a phase at the end.