Which treatment

Crooked teeth

There are two ways to fix a crooked tooth: move it, or cover it. One takes months and costs you nothing of the tooth; the other takes a week and is permanent. Almost everything worth knowing is in that trade.

Moving them: 6 months–3 years
Covering them: 5–7 days
Tooth removed: None, or 0.5–1 mm
Decided by: A scan and a bite

What it is

Teeth end up out of line for reasons that are mostly not your fault: a jaw that grew smaller than the teeth it had to hold, baby teeth lost too early so the ones behind drifted forward, thumb-sucking or a dummy held past the age it should have been, a habit of swallowing with the tongue against the front teeth — and, very often, a retainer that stopped being worn after braces as a teenager.

What matters now is which of two routes you take. Orthodontics moves the teeth into line: aligners for mild and moderate cases, fixed braces for the rest. It takes months, it removes nothing from the tooth, and it fixes the bite as well as the look. Cosmetic dentistry covers them instead: veneers or crowns, five to seven days, and enamel that never comes back.

Where the teeth are only slightly out and otherwise healthy, straightening is nearly always the better answer, and a clinic that offers veneers without mentioning it is selling rather than advising. Where the teeth are worn, chipped or discoloured as well as crooked, veneers are doing two jobs at once and become the sensible route. Sometimes both: straighten first, face second.

A veneer on a crooked tooth is a decision that cannot be taken back. Ask whether the tooth could simply have been moved.
Prof. Dr. Coşkun Yıldız

Which one you need

Clear aligners
Removable trays, six to eighteen months, and reviews that can mostly happen by video. The only orthodontics that works at a distance.
Mild to moderate crowding — and anyone living abroad
Fixed braces
Brackets and a wire can make movements a tray cannot. Eighteen months to three years, and an appointment every four to eight weeks.
Severe crowding, rotations, real bite problems
Veneers
Under a millimetre of enamel, a week, and a result the same trip. Best where the teeth needed cosmetic work anyway.
Slightly out of line, and worn or discoloured too
Crowns
More of the tooth is prepared, so it is reserved for teeth that need the protection for their own sake, not for their angle.
Teeth already damaged or heavily filled
Straighten, then face
Months of aligners, then thin veneers on teeth already in the right place. It takes longest and preserves most.
Crooked and worn together

What happens to you

Two visits, and a wait at home in between

Before anything
Photographs
Send photographs of your smile and of your bite, front and side. Most of this decision can be narrowed before you travel.
The examination
A scan and a bite check
X-rays, a digital scan and a look at how the teeth actually meet. A tooth out of line because the bite is wrong is a different problem from a tooth out of line on its own.
The conversation
Both routes, both prices
You should hear the orthodontic option and the cosmetic option, with the time and the cost of each — including where you live, which decides whether fixed braces are realistic at all.
Then
The treatment you chose
Aligners, braces or veneers, on the plan you agreed to and against the design you were shown.
Afterwards
Keeping it
Straightened teeth drift back without a retainer. Veneered teeth need the gum around them kept healthy. Neither result maintains itself.

Before anything
Photographs
Send photographs of your smile and of your bite, front and side. Most of this decision can be narrowed before you travel.
The examination
A scan and a bite check
X-rays, a digital scan and a look at how the teeth actually meet. A tooth out of line because the bite is wrong is a different problem from a tooth out of line on its own.
The conversation
Both routes, both prices
You should hear the orthodontic option and the cosmetic option, with the time and the cost of each — including where you live, which decides whether fixed braces are realistic at all.
Then
The treatment you chose
Aligners, braces or veneers, on the plan you agreed to and against the design you were shown.
Afterwards
Keeping it
Straightened teeth drift back without a retainer. Veneered teeth need the gum around them kept healthy. Neither result maintains itself.

Before anything
Photographs
Send photographs of your smile and of your bite, front and side. Most of this decision can be narrowed before you travel.
The examination
A scan and a bite check
X-rays, a digital scan and a look at how the teeth actually meet. A tooth out of line because the bite is wrong is a different problem from a tooth out of line on its own.
The conversation
Both routes, both prices
You should hear the orthodontic option and the cosmetic option, with the time and the cost of each — including where you live, which decides whether fixed braces are realistic at all.
Then
The treatment you chose
Aligners, braces or veneers, on the plan you agreed to and against the design you were shown.
Afterwards
Keeping it
Straightened teeth drift back without a retainer. Veneered teeth need the gum around them kept healthy. Neither result maintains itself.

Before anything
Photographs
Send photographs of your smile and of your bite, front and side. Most of this decision can be narrowed before you travel.
The examination
A scan and a bite check
X-rays, a digital scan and a look at how the teeth actually meet. A tooth out of line because the bite is wrong is a different problem from a tooth out of line on its own.
The conversation
Both routes, both prices
You should hear the orthodontic option and the cosmetic option, with the time and the cost of each — including where you live, which decides whether fixed braces are realistic at all.
Then
The treatment you chose
Aligners, braces or veneers, on the plan you agreed to and against the design you were shown.
Afterwards
Keeping it
Straightened teeth drift back without a retainer. Veneered teeth need the gum around them kept healthy. Neither result maintains itself.

Questions

Can veneers fix crooked teeth?

Mild misalignment, yes — a veneer can make a slightly turned tooth read as straight. Genuinely crowded or rotated teeth cannot be faced into line without grinding away tooth that should not be ground away, and that is when the answer is orthodontics.

Which is cheaper?

On the invoice it depends on the case. In tooth, straightening costs nothing and veneers cost enamel permanently — and that is the currency worth counting at forty, not at twenty-five.

Am I too old to straighten them?

No. Bone remodels at any age; it simply takes longer, and the gums must be healthy first. Adults are a large share of orthodontic patients everywhere.

Does it matter beyond appearance?

Yes. Crowded teeth hold what a brush cannot reach, so decay and gum disease follow; a bite that meets wrongly wears particular teeth down and loads the jaw joint unevenly.

Why did my teeth move after braces?

Almost always a retainer that stopped being worn. Teeth keep a memory of where they were for years, and retention is the part of orthodontics that never really finishes.

Patients

The people who already came

Six of our patients, filmed at the clinic and talking about their own treatment. They are the clinic’s patients rather than any one procedure’s — what each of them had is in the film.