Your smile’s aesthetics, dental health, and general oral health are all influenced by how your teeth are positioned. When you close your mouth, malocclusion happens when your teeth are not properly aligned with the teeth on the opposite jaw or with the neighbouring teeth in the same arch. In addition to poor digestion brought on by inappropriate food chewing, it puts you at risk for various oral health issues if left untreated.
Overbite and overjet are two kinds of malocclusion that develop from jaw misalignment. Both lead to a misaligned jawline, but they do so in quite different ways. Continue reading to learn more about the distinction between an overjet and an overbite as well as treatments for better general and dental health.
Overbite
An overbite develops when the upper teeth cover the lower teeth by more than 3 millimetres. Your teeth may deteriorate as a result of continual contact if you have an overbite. Additionally, you may experience speech issues, sleep apnea, and jaw discomfort. In extreme circumstances, improper alignment can cause teeth to bang against one another, harming the gums and enamel.
What Leads To Overbites?
The size or form of the jaw or teeth is the most frequent cause of an overbite, although other factors, such as the behaviours stated above and tongue pushing, can worsen underlying hereditary features and exacerbate an overbite.
Overjet
An overjet is a condition where your upper jaw’s teeth sit at an angle toward the outside, causing them to protrude far in front of your lower jaw’s teeth. In addition to affecting the aesthetics of your smile, an overjet makes it challenging to eat, speak, and perform other oral activities. Similar to an overbite, it could cause jaw discomfort. The angle of the teeth may make it difficult for you to fully seal your lips.
What Results In Overjet Teeth?
Overjet teeth can have several genetic and inherited causes related to jaw development. Children’s practises including protracted bottle feeding and thumb sucking, which can further misalign the jaw and teeth, can also result in buck teeth (increasing overjet).
What Occurs If you Have Overbite Or Overjet?
An overbite or overjet can result in serious health issues, such as the following:
Jaw Ache
The development of Temporomandibular Joint Disorder may be influenced by the chronic jaw discomfort and headaches brought on by an unaligned jaw (TMD).
Speaking Or Chewing Challenges
An overjet might damage your speech and make it challenging to chew food properly. When your teeth are excessively protruded, you could have trouble pronouncing particular words since you utilise your teeth, lips, and tongue to make sounds.
A Sleep Disorder
getting insufficient sleep? Obstructive sleep apnoea is more likely to occur in those with overjets, especially if the overjet is accompanied by a little lower jaw setback.
Increased Wear And Tear And Cracked Teeth
When you have an overbite, your teeth frequently bump into one other when you’re sleeping or using them, which can lead to enamel damage, tooth fractures, and even tooth loss.
Gum Disease
In extreme situations, the upper front teeth may impact the lower front teeth’s gum line while the lower front teeth may be in touch with the upper front tooth’s gum line. Gum recession, gum disease, and even wobbly, loose teeth might arise from this.
How To Care For An Overjet And Overbite?
Depending on how severe the issue is, there are many overbite and overjet treatments available. Even while treating an overjet may be more difficult, it is still doable. Early orthodontic assessment and treatment is advised, ideally by the age of seven. The teeth are still forming at this age, making it simple to direct their growth. Some of the therapeutic options for adults include:
- Standard Braces
- Invisalign
- Veneers
- Crowns
- Bonding
For Mild To Severe Misalignment, Traditional Braces
For the treatment of tooth alignment issues, traditional braces are quite successful. To place your teeth properly, they are made up of metal brackets and wires that adhere to your teeth. For all ages, conventional braces are the best option for correcting severe misalignment. Because traditional braces exert greater force than other kind of braces, they produce exceptional outcomes.
For Mild to Moderate Cases, Invisalign
With Invisalign, you don transparent trays over your teeth to reposition them, unlike with traditional braces. Even though Invisalign is removable, for the optimum results you must wear them every day for at least 22 hours. They are invisible, therefore they have no impact on how attractive your smile looks. Additionally, Invisalign is more comfortable and makes cleaning your teeth simpler.
Cosmetic Corrections With Veneers
Veneers are thin, custom-made shells that are tooth-colored and attached to the surfaces of teeth to improve their look. They can fix dental discolouration and chipping in addition to uneven, crooked, or malformed teeth. To guarantee a flawless fit, your dentists will remove a little amount of enamel from your teeth before placing the veneers.
As your dentist may customise the veneers to your particular shade of white, they improve the aesthetic attractiveness of your smile. Veneers do not irritate the gums and are very long-lasting and stain-resistant.
Crown Restoration
Dental crowns, or dental caps as they are commonly known, are restorations that fully encase your teeth to improve their look. Teeth that are out of alignment can be corrected with crowns rather than braces. The misaligned teeth will be initially filed down by your dentist before the dental crowns are affixed. Crowns can restore damage, enhance your teeth’s overall look, and last up to 10 years.
Cosmetic Bonding
With bonding, your dentist coats your teeth in resin and shapes them to resemble straight, even teeth. It just needs one consultation and is a painless technique that is perfect for moderate misalignment. Additionally, the bonding material blends in with the adjacent teeth to give you a grin that seems natural. Your teeth are also preserved since no enamel needs to be removed prior to treatment.
Final Words
Since a child’s jaw is still developing, overbites and overjets tend to be simpler to cure in children and teens, however correction for these disorders is also frequently done in adults.
Everybody has a tiny amount of overlap when it comes to an overbite. However, a specialist should be consulted if this issue is severe, makes it difficult to chew or talk, or causes discomfort.
Overjets are horizontal and cause the top teeth to tilt past the bottom teeth, whereas overbites are vertical and produce the opposite. However, if you have an overbite, your teeth will stay straight or downward (not on an angle).
A horizontal misalignment is an overjet, and a vertical misalignment is an overbite. In an overjet, the upper teeth protrude diagonally against the lower teeth, whereas they point straight downward in an overbite. You should be aware that you might have an overbite and an overjet at the same time.
