What is invisible or lingual orthodontics?
Lingual orthodontics is the orthodontic technique that places the appliance on the lingual part of the teeth, on the back, making the treatment totally invisible. Nowadays, the concept of transparent orthodontics is confused with that of invisible orthodontics, the latter being truly invisible because nothing is visible during treatment.
My eagerness to find the most aesthetic treatment possible for my patients led me in 1993 to learn this technique in the United States, as it has been used there for many years.
Here in Spain it was not done because it was thought that it was a technique that did not work and we were the first in Spain to use it to the point that if you asked for lingual technique it was synonymous with Joan Pau Marcó because no one else used this technique in our country.
Who can have lingual orthodontic treatment?
Anyone who needs orthodontics and requires esthetics during treatment can have lingual orthodontic treatment. From an adolescent patient who is beginning to worry about his or her esthetics to a patient in his or her 70s. In other words, anyone with any type of malocclusion that can be solved with conventional orthodontic treatment can be solved with lingual orthodontics.
What are the advantages of lingual orthodontics?
The main advantage is that it is a completely invisible treatment and another important one is comfort, although many patients think it is an uncomfortable treatment. We must think that the tongue is a muscle and as such it has the capacity to adapt, so it adapts perfectly to the brackets and the patient does not feel any discomfort.
This makes the patient feel satisfied and motivated because they see that their face and smile are improving without having to suffer the consequences of classic and unsightly braces.
Is lingual orthodontics more uncomfortable than conventional orthodontics?
No, lingual orthodontics is a very comfortable orthodontics. It is important to emphasize that everything depends on the appliance that you are going to place, so it is important that it is of high quality and as small as possible. It also depends on the professional, since lingual orthodontics is a detail orthodontics, in other techniques perhaps it is not so important, but in lingual technique it is extremely important: either you take care of the detail or the patient will have problems.
How do you see the future of lingual orthodontics?
It has a promising future, it is a very interesting technique, it comes from the 70s and today it is very much in vogue in digital technologies to improve diagnosis and the position of the brackets. In orthodontics, the important thing is also the art of the professional who is going to treat you. We always say that it is easy to start treatments and more with the new technologies, but the difficult thing is to finish the cases.