Adolescent Treatment

The American Association of Orthodontists (the AAO) recommends that your child be seen by an orthodontist by age 7.

Your child’s permanent teeth start to erupt at age 6.  Let’s not let their teeth come in badly.

No, your first grader is not getting braces.  Or treatment.

Think Prevention Orthodontics with Dr. McCoy.

If you already have a teenager who didn’t have Prevention Orthodontics with Dr. McCoy, click here to jump past our explanation of Prevention Orthodontics and see what Dr. McCoy can do to help your teenager.

Your 6 year old’s initial evaluation with Dr. McCoy is free.  Take advantage of that.

Your dentist only had two classes way back in dental school about growth and development and no classes about Prevention Orthodontics.

Dentists mistakenly wait and see how teeth erupt.  They wait until your child’s teeth have fully erupted.

Did you know that most children’s front teeth erupt too far compared to the back teeth?  Then as a teenager, we have to actually push teeth back where they came from, through bone.  This is the most difficult of all tooth movements.  And this could have been prevented, simply!

The dentist’s wait and see approach allows problems to get severe.

Instead of encouraging your child’s teeth to erupt in a more natural and wholistic manner at the right time, if needed, and instead of monitoring your child’s breathing and swallowing patterns (because muscles push teeth around), dentists allow most children to grow into more severe orthodontic problems that could have been easily prevented because dentists were not trained much in growth and development in dental school.  Dentists had no training in Prevention Orthodontics.

The Prevention Orthodontics with Dr. McCoy approach isn’t even taught to orthodontists!

It is quite sad when Dr. McCoy sees a 12 or 13 year old with complex orthodontic problems that could have been made far less severe by using simple, at-home Prevention Orthodontics with Dr. McCoy from age 6 or 7.

No braces are put on when your child is that young.  We are talking about expert monitoring and using Prevention Orthodontics at the proper time, if needed.

Dr. McCoy just employs simple and gentle encouragement of erupting teeth to get them to come in straighter if that’s what your child needs.

Let’s face it: not all teenagers will be good cooperators with their braces or SureSmile and Invisalign clear aligner treatment.

If you could guarantee that your teenager will have a simpler orthodontic problem when it’s time for braces, you would want that for your child.  You would want that for pocketbook, too, because you would get the most value for your child’s teenage orthodontic treatment as well.

Letting Dr. McCoy monitor your growing child from age 6 on would mean that severe orthodontic problems would never be let occur!

Your initial evaluation is free, so get Dr. McCoy’s expert opinion at age 6 and let Dr. McCoy monitor the eruption of your child’s permanent teeth.

When it is time to do braces, usually around age 11 or 12, you would get your money’s worth and get a better result, even if your teenager is not a great cooperator.

Because of Prevention Orthodontics with Dr. McCoy, your child would have a simpler orthodontic problem to start with as a teenager.  Simpler, shorter, more comfortable, more predictable, more stable.

Please do not wait for your dentist to tell you it is time to see an orthodontist.

It will be too late to prevent difficult-to-correct problems and your teenager may then start with a more severe orthodontic problem that could have been prevented as their permanent teeth started to erupt between the ages of 6 and 7.  Your teenager will need longer treatment and that won’t make anyone happy.

Why should we have to push a teenagers bottom teeth back down or their upper teeth back up where they came from because a deep overlap was allowed to happen?  Pushing a tooth back up into bone is the most difficult tooth movement to do.  It takes a great deal of time and requires very good cooperation.

Overly-erupted teeth can easily be prevented, but only if your child is seen by an expert, not by your general dentist.

Think Prevention Orthodontics with Dr. McCoy.

Think first grade is the first time to see Dr. McCoy.  We take photos and you go home.

Again, we are not putting braces on your 6 or 7 year old!

They probably don’t even have many permanent teeth in, yet.

We are having a growth and development expert like Dr. McCoy, not your dentist, see your child every six months and show you how Prevention Orthodontics, if needed, can help your child grow into straighter teeth.

You want a simpler orthodontic problem for your teenager, in case they are not a great cooperator.  You want your braces or SureSmile and Invisalign clear aligner treatment to be rock-star and stable long-term.