Braces in Innisfail

Braces move teeth by pushing on them gently and continuously for months on end, which is why the appointment that matters is not the day they go on but every adjustment after it. In Innisfail that means the whole course runs in town, rather than a monthly run to Cairns for a five-minute adjustment.

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Why Local Matters More for This Than Anything Else

Adjustments come round every few weeks, each one short, for a year or more. Done at Innisfail that is a stop on the way somewhere. Done in a city two hours away it is a day off work or a day out of school, twenty times over, and that is the arithmetic that decides whether a course of treatment gets finished.

A bracket comes loose on a Thursday, a wire starts digging in, a school holiday moves an appointment. All of that is manageable when the clinic is in town and genuinely difficult when it is not, and it is the reason courses of treatment get abandoned halfway through.

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The Three We Fit

• Metal braces. Stainless steel brackets and a wire. The most robust option and the one that handles the widest range of movements, which is why it is still the most common.
• Ceramic braces. The same idea with tooth-coloured brackets, so at conversational distance they are far less obvious. This is usually what adults are asking about when they ask whether there is a discreet option that is not aligners.
• Fastbraces. A different bracket system, available here. Whether it suits your case is a question for the assessment rather than a decision made off a website.

We are not going to tell you which one is best in the abstract, because there is no answer to that. Which system suits you depends on what your teeth and your bite are actually doing.

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Braces or Clear Aligners

Both are available at Innisfail, which is worth saying plainly: the recommendation is not shaped by what we happen to offer.

Aligners are removable and close to invisible, and they come out to eat and clean. That is the advantage and it is also the catch, because they only work for the hours they are actually in. Braces are fixed on, so they keep working whether or not anyone remembers them, and there are movements they manage that aligners find harder. For a teenager who will not reliably wear a tray for twenty hours a day, that difference decides the case on its own.

There is more on our clear aligners page for Innisfail.

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Before Anything Goes On

An assessment first. Braces move teeth through bone, so the gums and the bone have to be healthy enough to take it, which is why adult treatment often starts with the gums, and any decay is dealt with before brackets go anywhere near a tooth. Records are taken with our Medit i700 intra-oral scanner and 3D imaging, so the plan is made from what is actually there.

You get the plan, the alternatives and the written quote before anything is fitted. If we think aligners, or nothing at all, would serve you better, that is what we will say.

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Cleaning Around Braces

Braces make teeth harder to clean and easier to mark, and white patches around where the brackets were are a permanent souvenir of a course of treatment cleaned badly. It is entirely avoidable, but it takes more than a quick brush. We show you how, and the check-ups during treatment are partly about catching this early.

If you play contact sport, you need a mouthguard made to go over braces rather than a shop-bought one jammed on top. We make those here, and there is more on our sports mouthguards page.

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Retainers Are Part of It, Not an Extra

Teeth drift back towards where they came from. A retainer, worn the way you are told, is what keeps the result you paid for, and that is a commitment that outlasts the braces themselves by years. We go through what that will involve at the start rather than presenting it as a surprise on the day the brackets come off.

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What It Costs

The fee depends on what needs moving and how long the case runs, so you get a written quote after the assessment, before anything is fitted. Orthodontic treatment usually sits under a different part of a health fund policy than general dental, so whether yours contributes depends on your cover: we check it at the desk through HICAPS. Interest-free payment plans are available, and there is more on our payment options page.