Have you just had your reverse-headgear fitted or been recommended by your orthodontist to have reverse-headgear fitted?
A reverse-headgear can be a very effective treatment for bite discrepancies such as an underbite. This is where the bottom teeth sit in front of the top teeth.
For younger patients, this type of treatment can be life-changing and is the most effective in the early stages of their growth and development. After wearing headgear for a matter of months, your child’s smile can be dramatically improved in both appearance and function.
In this article, we will explore what you might expect.
What is Orthodontic Reverse-Headgear?
As the name suggests, orthodontic reverse-headgear is an appliance worn on the head that has elastics connected to an appliance glued onto the upper teeth. It can assist in the treatment of your child’s bite and smile. This type of appliance is usually utilised during the ages of 6-11 when the connections of the upper jaw to the skull base have not matured . It’s at this age that the position of the upper jaw may be modified by moving it forward and downward to allow the upper teeth to naturally bite in front of the lower teeth.
First Few Days Wearing Reverse-Headgear
In the first few days of wearing the newly fitted reverse-headgear, your child may find it slightly uncomfortable after the initial adjustments are made. Some discomfort or soreness may be felt in the teeth, from the appliance and on the chin, under the chin pad.
We suggest a slow progressive period of “getting used” to it, starting with a few hours after school progressing to wearing it to bed after a week or two. Over-the-counter medication can be taken for any irritation or pain your child may be experiencing.
If your child has been recommended to wear the headgear at night, they may initially find it hard to fall asleep until they get used to the appliance. If that is the case, you can use pillows on either side of your child’s face to alleviate the discomfort whilst lying down.
Eating with Reverse-Headgear
Headgear cannot be worn whilst eating and drinking and will have to be removed before having a meal. However, water can be drunk through a straw.
How Well Does Reverse-Headgear Work?
When parents see the reverse-headgear their first thoughts are whether it is really necessary for their child to have a device that fits on the exterior of their head. However, headgear is generally only recommended for patients who are already experiencing significant bite issues at a young age.
Headgear’s primary function is to address any jaw alignment issues early on before they get worse. If your orthodontist has recommended it, they are doing so to prevent future problems and manage the situation whilst your child is still young.
Having headgear at a young age is a much better approach than having it at a later stage in your child’s development as you are waiting for an underbite to become more severe over time as the jaw grows. Over time, it becomes harder to address because of the lack of growth in adulthood. This could essentially result in more extreme treatment options later in life to address jaw alignment, such as jaw surgery.
Reverse-headgear usually improves most patients in the short term but nearly 25-30% of patient who enjoy success with the correction of the underbite experience significant lower jaw growth during the pubertal growth spurt (usually 11-13 in females and 13-15 in males) with recurrence of the underbite.
If this happens, the orthodontists will have to consider moving the teeth to compensate for the underlying jaw discrepancy or in more serious cases, consider jaw surgery when growth has ceased.
How Often is Reverse- Headgear Worn?
This is one of the most common questions we get asked about headgear. In most cases, your child does not have to actually wear the headgear around the clock. The amount of time is dependent on your child’s specific treatment, but it can vary between 8 to 14 hours a day.
Like any other orthodontic treatment, results typically start to be seen between 3 and 6 months of wearing the headgear. However, this is also dependent on how diligently your child wears the headgear.
The hardest part of the treatment is encouraging patients to wear the reverse-headgear as instructed. Reverse-headgear requires a considerable amount of cooperation from the patient given that they are asked to wear an appliance that fits on their head. The more your child can wear the appliance, the better the outcome and the shorter the period the appliance has to be utilised as part of the overall treatment process. If your child only wears it for half the time that they are instructed to do so, then that phase of treatment is likely to last longer.
If you are worried about your child’s thoughts or concerns about wearing reverse-headgear, your orthodontist can work with you to create a schedule that will allow your child to avoid wearing the headgear when they may not necessarily want to.
Moving Forward with Reverse-Headgear
We hope you now have a better insight into everything moving forward with the reverse-headgear and what to expect in the coming weeks. You should feel confident about your child’s treatment. If you have any questions or concerns about your orthodontic treatment in general, please call us on 1300 067 846.