Homemade braces: "They can cause tooth loss," warns an orthodontist

The titles of tutorials are dreaming: "Get a free dentures and quickly at home", "Make a brace for five dollars" ... Friday, December 18, the French Federation of Orthodontics (FFO) warned the public against the proliferation of adolescents videos explaining how to make their own braces.

If the phenomenon is fashionable in the United States, it is not yet widespread in France, but professionals prefer to warn: "These methods are dangerous and can cause many complications," said Maxime Rotenberg, orthodontist and member of the FFO to FranceTV info.

Trombone, wire and elastic

To remedy the dental "imperfections", adolescents publish videos showing how to use fireworks to align their teeth, get a diastema (a gap between the incisors) or otherwise bring them together. Trombone, wire, fishing line ... Everything is good to get a perfect smile.

To reconcile its incisors, the most common technique is to place a rubber band around both teeth to bring them closer. There are three years, the American Shalom De Sota has set an example in a video viewed more than 950,000 times on YouTube. Three years later, she does not regret it.

Contacted by FranceTV info, the young native girl Massachusetts ensures that its teeth "going very well". Besides, if Shalom has used the "home" is more than willing by necessity: "I had no money to pay me braces because my parents could not pay health insurance. I thought other people might be in the same situation as me, and I wanted to share my idea with the world. " His parents even find that his invention is "creative," she says. "They were not worried, I am not stupid." She said Shalom got the desired result in a few months.

"I must admit that girls who use this technique do it with some skill, says Maxime Rotenberg, the problem is that there are also real risks of inflammation and loosening of teeth." Moreover, improvise orthodontist seems risky. "We work with a dynamometer during our studies, we study the movement of teeth, their growth ... It does not just happen!"

Infection of the gums and tooth loss

Among the noise corridor that run between orthodontists, there is this story of a grandfather who, to address its incisors too far apart, would have surrounded a rubber band. "With the force of the spring, the teeth are close together in rotation, and took the form of cones," said Maxime Rotenberg. History has it that with saliva, the elastic is back on the gum, entering it to "cut the fibers attached to the teeth to the gums." That grandfather had existed or not, professional warns: this is how "teeth begin to move at the risk of losing them.".

In France, only one case was reported by Dr. Jean-Baptiste Kerbrat, doctor dentist in the hospital Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris; He was a 12 year old boy who had lost his two teeth after being surrounded by an elastic, reports Le Figaro. Unlike the United States, health insurance and mutuals are accessible, and allow better access to dental care. "I think it is therefore more a fad," hopes the specialist.