Life After Braces

If you have braces already, congratulations! You’ve taken one of the best, proactive steps towards your long-term oral health.

We know as well as you do that orthodontic treatment can be a long process, but by and large, our patients find that the treatment is well worth the cost and effort.

When you get your braces off, chances are your teeth will be straight, but in order to keep those pearly whites in great shape even after your last orthodontist appointment, there are several things you can do—thing of it as an insurance policy on your orthodontic treatment.

Here are some tips courtesy of NewBeauty.com:

Give your gums some TLC 
If you had wire braces, there's a chance that your gums are in need of a little bit of care since "many patients have difficulty keeping their gums as healthy as they should be due to the difficulty of flossing with wires in their mouths," says one California dentist. "If your gums are slightly puffy, rinse with hot salt water three times a day until they are firm again." 

Schedule a dentist appointment 
The same reasoning applies here-there's a good chance your teeth were slightly neglected while you wore braces or aligners, so once you're finished wearing them, make sure to schedule a check up and cleaning with your dentist, along with dental x-rays (especially if you wore metal braces) to check for tooth decay. 

Never stop wearing retainers 
This might go without saying, but there are plenty of people who choose not to wear their retainers (or simply stop wearing them after awhile). But if they aren't worn regularly, your teeth will move back to their original position pretreatment.

Click here to read the full article.

If you don’t have braces yet, but think that you might need orthodontic treatment in Pittsburgh, call Reed Orthodontics today for a consultation, at (412) 421-8565.

Yearbook Photos: A Memory Lane and a Crystal Ball, All in One

Out of all the photos you’ve had taken of yourself, chances are your yearbook photo is at least a little bit embarrassing. In high school and college, we’re still very much finding ourselves, and looking back at our smiles of yesteryear can be an entertaining source of laughs and jokes amongst friends.

But did you know that your yearbook photo can predict a lot about your future? It’s true, according to a recent study.

Matthew Hertenstein, associate professor of psychology at DePauw University, reviewed the following yearbook photo facts in a recent Wall Street Journal article:

It turns out that those who smiled least in their photographs were about five times more likely to divorce at some point in their lives compared with those who smiled most.

• People who remained in their relationships tended to smile more warmly and brightly compared with their divorced counterparts.
• Future divorcées were more likely to look somewhat stoic-faced. They either didn't smile or, if smiling, tended not to contract their orbicularis oculi, producing the sort of look you might find on the face of someone who is tired of talking to you at a cocktail party.
• A 2001 study by LeeAnne Harker and Dacher Keltner in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that women flashing bright, warm smiles in their college yearbook photos reported experiencing less anxiety, sadness and despair in the 30 years after graduating.
• In a study published in Psychological Science in 2010, researchers Ernest Abel and Michael Kruger even showed that professional baseball players who smiled warmly in photos taken in the early 1950s lived, on average, until the age of 80, compared with age 73 for their non-smiling counterparts.

Whether you’re happy or unhappy with your yearbook photo, people of all ages have a range of orthodontic treatment options when it comes to fixing that smile—call Reed Orthodontics today for a consultation, at (412) 421-8565.