ASIO (the Italian Association of Orthodontic Specialists) has recently warned about the spread in Italy of a trend already well established in the United States: the use of aligners, sold online by unscrupulous multinationals, for do-it-yourself teeth straightening. Together with the online spread of dental hoaxes, this poses a serious risk to dental health.
DIY aligners for straightening teeth are the latest fad to arrive from the United States. Often driven by the desire for a beautiful smile at low cost (much like the excessive use of whitening strips), they are already causing irreparable damage to a great many patients.
How does it work? The manufacturers send customers a kit with everything they need to take an impression of their own teeth, which is then used to make a custom aligner.
Once the customer receives the aligner, they can start orthodontic treatment on their own, without any medical supervision. It is a seemingly easy, quick and very cheap method that appeals to many people who are unaware of the health risks.
Diagnosis and constant supervision by a qualified orthodontist, however, are absolutely essential at every stage of orthodontic treatment: from clinical and X-ray examinations to study models and mouth scans, through to the planning and supervision of every phase of treatment, not forgetting regular check-ups after treatment.
Without professional supervision, the risks are many: from irreparable damage to the alignment of the dental arches to a functional worsening of the bite.
But the pitfalls of the web do not end there. After general medicine, dentistry too has for some time been the subject of hoaxes that quickly go viral: the toxicity of fluoride and the whitening properties of activated charcoal are just a few examples.
Unfortunately, health information is one of the main targets of fake news creators. The most striking case is the spread of a film called Root Cause: 72 minutes of false alarms about the dangers of endodontics (root canal treatment), which it claims is behind a long list of illnesses ranging from anxiety to heart disease and malignant tumours.
The only way to protect yourself is to check the sources: if the news is also reported by scientific websites or sources of proven reliability, then the matter is worth looking into further. If in doubt, though, always ask your trusted dentist.
Credits: Photo by Candid on Unsplash
