If you have slightly crooked teeth you will probably turn to braces for help, but correcting the alignment of your teeth isn't the only thing braces can do. Braces are capable of correcting many problems that can affect the health and strength of your teeth and your jaw, and can help improve your teeth's longevity and decrease or eliminate constant pain. Getting braces can even change the way your face looks. Braces are a viable corrective option for many kinds of health issues.

Remove Gaps and Reduce Overcrowding

Even if your teeth aren't very crooked, you still might have issues where your teeth are too tightly packed, or the opposite, where you have large gaps between your teeth. While this may not affect your appearance too much, problems like this can actually be bad for your teeth and can make it harder to take care of them.

For example, if your teeth are forced too close together, it can be hard to clean between them, which makes it easier for food to stick. This can result in decay, and can leave you with cavities much earlier than you would have normally. Fixing teeth alignment problems can help you improve your dental hygiene and keep your teeth healthy for longer.

Correct Overbites, Underbites and Crossbites

Bite problems are largely affected by the shape of your jaw and not necessarily the position of your teeth, but braces can still fix many of these problems. This is because your jaw moves slightly with your teeth when braces are installed, though you may need to wear some type of headgear to facilitate this process.

Because of this, having braces to fix a bite problem can also result in the correction of speech impediments, chewing problems and jaw protrusions.

Jaw and Tooth Pain

Because braces are capable of moving so much, it can also help correct constant pain caused by jaw and teeth problems. If you have jaw alignment problems, braces can correct this alignment; since it will occur slowly over time, you may not need any additional corrective treatment. This may also require the use of headgear, but if you're worried about how it will look, you can often get headgear that you will only need to wear at night.

The Benefits of Corrective Braces

While many corrective treatments, such as surgery, may become less appealing or less available due to your age -- or other factors -- braces can be used by most people at any age. The only requirement is that your teeth and gums are in good enough health to have braces, and that you don't have any health issues that might cause potential problems, such as diseases that make you prone to excessive bleeding. If so, anyone can benefit from them regardless of age or most other circumstances.