01/09/2026
No extractions, no surgery. 14 months of braces + expanders resulted in this beautiful smile. This patient was told by another clinician that 4 adult teeth had to be removed. We completed this treatment with zero extractions.
Extraction-based orthodontics is a well-established, effective approach, and for plenty of people it's the right one. But it isn't the only starting point, and it's worth understanding the alternatives before deciding.
Here, the plan was 14 months of Guided Growth, gently guiding the dental arches (the curved ridges of bone that hold the teeth) to develop with more width, so the teeth had somewhere to settle rather than needing space made for them. Swipe to the last few slides and you'll see the bite come together from the side.
This is the airway-first thinking Dr Patrick Ryan, a dentist and expert in sleep medicine providing orthodontic treatment, brings to growing patients. Room for the teeth often means room for the tongue, and where the tongue sits can influence how easily air moves through the nose, particularly during sleep. Teeth, jaws and breathing develop together, so we look at all of it before making a plan.
Every case is different. Sometimes extractions are genuinely the best option, and timeframes, approaches and results vary from person to person. The only way to know what suits you or your child is an individual assessment.
