The Teenage Years Are the Ones That Decide Everything

Six-monthly exams that track alignment, erosion, wisdom teeth and hygiene during the years when all four are changing fastest. More frequent during orthodontic treatment.

School and club sport produces most adolescent dental trauma. A knocked-out adult tooth needs reimplanting inside thirty minutes — keep it in milk and call us on the way.

How we make custom mouthguards, and how we monitor whether wisdom teeth are heading for trouble. Scanning also replaces the impression trays teenagers universally hate.

Composite bonding rebuilds chipped front teeth, and there are conservative treatments for decalcification marks left after braces that stop well short of veneers.

Teenage enamel is still maturing and the nerve chamber is larger, so results are poorer and sensitivity worse. Usually there is a better explanation for the colour that needs a different treatment.

Around age eight or nine, which is earlier than most families expect. That assessment is not about starting treatment — most children still get braces between twelve and fourteen. It is about identifying the small number of problems that are much easier to fix while the jaws are still growing: crossbites, severe crowding, a jaw that is developing asymmetrically. Catching those early can occasionally avoid extractions or a much longer course of treatment later. We can make that assessment at a normal check-up and tell you whether a referral is worth making.

No, and the routine removal of every wisdom tooth is no longer considered good practice. What matters is whether there is room for them to come through upright and be cleaned. If they are angled into the tooth in front, partially erupted with a gum flap that keeps getting infected, or causing decay on the neighbouring molar, then removal is the right call. If they are sitting comfortably and cleanable, leaving them alone is right. We monitor them on x-ray through the late teens. One genuine timing consideration: if they are going to need removal, it is usually easier in the late teens than in the thirties, when the roots are fully formed and the bone is denser.

Often improved substantially, yes, and it is worth knowing the options before anyone suggests veneers. Those marks are decalcification — areas where plaque sat against the enamel and drew minerals out of it. Some fade over months as saliva re-mineralises them, especially with high-fluoride toothpaste and tooth mousse. For marks that persist there are conservative treatments such as resin infiltration that mask them without drilling. Veneers on a teenager should be close to a last resort, because they are permanent and they commit that person to replacement crowns for the rest of their life.

For teeth, yes, and worse than most parents realise. It is a double problem: high sugar feeds decay-causing bacteria, and high acidity dissolves enamel directly regardless of the sugar, which is why sugar-free versions are not the safe alternative people assume. The pattern matters more than the quantity — a can sipped over two hours keeps the mouth acidic for two hours, which is far more damaging than the same can drunk in five minutes. Realistic advice for a teenager who is not going to give them up: drink it quickly, rinse with water afterwards, use a straw, and do not brush for thirty minutes because brushing softened enamel scrubs it away.

Counter-intuitively, 8:00am. An appointment at the start of the day costs a teenager one period; a 2:00pm appointment usually costs the whole afternoon once travel is counted, because they rarely go back. The 3:30pm to 5:00pm window everyone wants is also the most contested time of the week across every practice in the northern suburbs, so it books out early in the term. School holidays are the easiest of all if you can plan that far ahead, and for a family with several teenagers we will block consecutive appointments so it is one trip.

If it is a boil-and-bite from the sports shop, it offers limited protection and it will not stay in properly. A custom guard made from a scan of his teeth clips into place, stays there while he is talking and breathing hard, and lasts a season. Growing teenagers need a new one most years. Given that a knocked-out front tooth at fifteen means crowns and eventually an implant, replaced periodically across sixty years, the guard is the cheapest thing in the equation by a wide margin.

Carefully, and by talking to her rather than about her. A teenager who is embarrassed about their teeth will often not open their mouth properly, will not ask questions, and will not come back. We ask what specifically bothers them — it is frequently something quite different from what the parent assumes — and we are straightforward about what can and cannot be changed, and at what age. A lot of the time the honest answer is that the thing worrying them is normal and will look different in two years, and hearing that from a dentist rather than a parent carries more weight.

Start handing it over before they leave home rather than after. Let them answer the questions in the chair. Put the appointment reminders on their phone, not yours. Have them make the next booking at the front desk themselves. It sounds small, but the group who fall out of dental care most reliably are eighteen to twenty-five year olds who moved out having never once booked their own appointment, and who then do not go near a dentist until something hurts at twenty-six.