There was a time when a patient needed to be fitted for braces, a gooey substance would be placed in a container that looked like a mouth guard and then inserted in the patient’s mouth. It was large and often uncomfortable. Some patients with small mouths would even complain that those gadgets make them gag, and the whole experience of being fitted for braces seems like a traumatic incident.
Well, no need to worry about those things anymore. For those people with small mouths, having your teeth measured for braces will no longer have to be a traumatic experience due to the technology of 3D printer orthodontics.
3D printing technology has made it possible to make impressions of almost every item in existence. With the help of a scanner, people can photograph any item they want, for example, a toy car, and feed the measurements of the item into the 3D printer. The machine can then create a replica of that item down to the last detail.
Now, 3D printing technology has also made it possible to replicate human teeth, which is great for dentists, orthodontists and patients because of the convenience this technology can bring. Choking is not an ideal way to spend an afternoon and fortunately for 3D printer orthodontics machines, that will never happen again.
It is more accurate
3D printing technology has also the advantage of being more accurate compared to traditional means of making an impression of your teeth.
When orthodontists use alginate, the gooey substance that they use to make an impression of your teeth, there is a chance that they will make a mistake in copying the shape and size of your teeth. When a patient wears the container inside his mouth, he should stay still for several minutes for the alginate to harden and therefore make an impression of his teeth.
But sometimes, some patients find it hard to sit still for 30 minutes and sometimes even if they try to sit still, they might move their jaws a little bit, throwing off the alginate’s measurement of their teeth. This will not happen with 3D scanners because it will not take as long as using alginate to make an impression. Therefore, the patient would not have to sit still for a long time and risk making a mistake.
It is faster
As mentioned earlier, 3D scanners are faster when it comes to making an impression of a patient’s teeth, which is convenient for both the orthodontist and the patient. No longer will patients have to wait and keep their jaws clenched for a long time waiting for the gel in their mouths to harden because 3D scanners can work faster.
It allows more effective crown replacements
3D printing technology has also made it possible to replace broken crowns faster than the traditional method. Back then, it takes several weeks to make a model of the broken crown and replace the broken one.
But with the power of 3D printing technology, it takes 30 minutes to make an impression of the broken crown and create a replacement out of porcelain. Not only does 3D printing make replacing broken crowns faster but because it will not take a lot of time to do this procedure, the costs are also minimized.
3D printing technology has made orthodontics easier, more convenient and even less costly, which is why every orthodontist and patient should start using this kind of technology.
