Braces

What Are Braces?

Braces are a fixed orthodontic appliance: small brackets bonded to each tooth, joined by an archwire that applies continuous, controlled pressure. That pressure remodels the bone around each root, which is what allows teeth to move through it without becoming loose. Because the appliance is fixed and the wire can be bent and adjusted in three dimensions, braces remain the most versatile tool in orthodontics - there is no tooth movement they cannot achieve.

Treatment corrects crowding, spacing, rotated teeth, protrusion and bite discrepancies. Straightness is the visible part; the functional part matters more. Teeth that meet correctly wear evenly, are easier to clean, and put less strain on the jaw joints.

Types of Braces

How Are Braces Fitted?

1. Records. Photographs, an intraoral scan and radiographs, including a cephalometric film for growth and jaw relationship analysis. Nothing is planned from a smile photograph.
2. Preparation. Any decay is treated and the teeth are professionally cleaned first. Brackets are not bonded onto untreated cavities or inflamed gums.
3. Bonding. Each bracket is placed in a precise position on the tooth and light-cured. Bracket position determines the final result more than any later adjustment.
4. The archwire. A light, flexible first wire is placed and secured. Later wires become progressively stiffer as the teeth align.
5. Adjustments. Every four to eight weeks the wire is changed or activated. These appointments are short but they are the treatment - missing them stretches the timeline more than anything else.

At What Age Can Braces Be Fitted?

A first orthodontic assessment is recommended at around seven years old, not because treatment usually starts then, but because that is when a developing problem can be identified while the jaws are still growing. Early intervention is used selectively - for crossbites, severe protrusion or space maintenance - and is often a short phase rather than full treatment.

Full fixed treatment usually begins once most permanent teeth are through, typically between eleven and fourteen. In adults there is no upper limit: teeth move at any age given healthy bone and gums. Adult treatment simply takes somewhat longer and requires that gum disease is fully controlled beforehand - moving teeth through inflamed bone causes damage rather than correction.

How Long Do Braces Stay On?

Most cases run eighteen to thirty months. Minor alignment can be finished in six to twelve, while cases involving extractions, jaw discrepancies or impacted teeth can run past three years. What actually determines the duration is not the appliance but the biology and the cooperation: how far the teeth have to travel, whether elastics are worn as instructed, and whether appointments are kept. Nobody can promise a completion date at the first visit, and any figure quoted before the records are analysed is a guess.

Do Braces Hurt?

Fitting the brackets does not hurt - nothing is drilled and no anaesthetic is needed. What follows does: for three to five days after fitting and for a day or two after each adjustment, the teeth ache when biting, because that is what tooth movement feels like. Ordinary painkillers, soft food and cold drinks cover it.

Separately, the inside of the lips and cheeks needs a week or two to toughen against the brackets. Orthodontic wax over any sharp point solves it in the meantime, and a wire that is genuinely digging in should be trimmed rather than tolerated - call us instead of waiting for the next appointment.

What Not to Eat with Braces

• Hard: nuts, ice, hard crusts, raw carrots and apples bitten into whole, bones, popcorn kernels. Cut hard food into pieces and chew with the back teeth.
• Sticky: toffee, chewing gum, nougat, caramel - these pull brackets off more reliably than anything else.
• Sugary drinks: the risk with braces is not the wire but the white marks left around brackets by acid and sugar. Those marks are permanent even after the braces come off.
• Staining, if you have ceramic brackets: the brackets do not stain, but the elastic ligatures do - coffee, tea, turmeric and smoking discolour them between visits.

Cleaning Teeth with Braces

This is the part that decides whether you finish treatment with straight, healthy teeth or straight, decalcified ones. Brush after every meal, angling the brush above and below the brackets rather than straight at them. Use an interdental brush to reach under the wire, and floss with a threader or a water flosser daily. A fluoride mouthrinse each evening is worth the thirty seconds. Professional cleaning every six months is not optional during orthodontic treatment.

Elastic Ties and Colours

The small elastic ligatures that hold the wire into each bracket are changed at every adjustment, and they come in a wide range of colours - which for younger patients is often the most enjoyable part of the appointment. Clear or tooth-coloured ties are available for adults, with the caveat that they pick up stain from coffee, tea and smoking within a few weeks. Separately, and confusingly named, the larger elastics worn between the upper and lower jaws are not decorative: they correct the bite, and they only work while they are actually being worn.

Are Extractions Needed With Braces?

Not always, and less often than in the past. Where crowding is severe or the front teeth protrude significantly, removing premolars creates the space to place the teeth in a stable position - trying to fit them all in without that space pushes the teeth out through the bone, which relapses and can cause recession. Where crowding is mild, expansion and interproximal reduction usually suffice. This decision is made from the cephalometric analysis and the models, and it should be explained to you with the reasons before you consent.

After the Braces Come Off

The teeth are polished, any residual adhesive is removed, and a retainer is fitted the same day. Retention is not the epilogue of orthodontic treatment - it is part of it. Without retainers, teeth drift back, most visibly in the lower front, and the relapse cases we see are almost always people who stopped wearing them.

In most cases a fixed retainer is bonded behind the front teeth and a removable retainer is worn at night. Full-time wear for the first months, then nights indefinitely. It sounds like a lot until you compare it with two years of treatment done twice.

Braces or Clear Aligners?

Braces handle everything, including severe rotations, impacted teeth, large extraction spaces and jaw discrepancies. Clear aligners handle mild to moderate cases invisibly and removably, and depend entirely on being worn 20 to 22 hours a day. For a teenager with a complex bite, braces are usually the answer. For an adult with mild crowding or post-treatment relapse, aligners usually are. The honest version of this comparison is that both are tools and the case chooses, not the marketing.

Braces and Living Abroad

Here is the part most clinics leave out. Fixed braces need an adjustment appointment every four to eight weeks for the whole of treatment. If you live in another country, that is not a plan - it is a series of flights, and it is why we will usually recommend clear aligners to international patients whose cases allow it: the full series is issued at once, progress is reviewed from photographs, and visits are counted in ones rather than dozens.

Where a case genuinely requires fixed appliances, the workable arrangement is shared care with an orthodontist in your own country, agreed before treatment begins rather than improvised halfway through. Send us your records through WhatsApp and we will tell you which of these applies to you. If the answer is that you should be treated at home, we will say so.

Why We Do Not Publish Braces Prices

Because orthodontic treatment is priced by the complexity and duration of the case, and neither can be known before the records are analysed. A six-month alignment and a three-year extraction case are not the same treatment. Fixed advertised prices in orthodontics generally cover the appliance and quietly exclude the adjustments, the retainers or the extractions - the parts that make up the real total. After the assessment you receive a written plan covering the whole course of treatment, including retention.

Orthodontic Treatment in Kusadasi

Our clinic is in Cumhuriyet Mahallesi in Kusadasi, with five treatment units and both the intraoral scanner and CBCT on site, so records are taken and analysed in the same building. Your first examination is carried out by Tugce Arslan.

If you are considering treatment, bring or send whatever records you already have. The most useful first conversation is not about appliances but about whether the case suits fixed braces, aligners, or treatment closer to home.

The information on this page is general and does not replace a clinical examination. Which appliance is appropriate can only be decided after examination and radiographic analysis.