and with straight smile solutions straightsmilesolutions.com and today we're going
to be talking about the frankel appliances which is one of many different my functional appliances
slash orthotropic appliances that are out there this has been around since the world war ii era
but it's still a good appliance um i'll talk about the pros and the cons i think i've used it
once i wouldn't say it's my go-to appliance nor do i recommend it but
it really does work so basically the way this one works um is that it harnesses
the benefits of the pressure of the tongue by reducing the strength or the pressure of the
cheeks and lips so remember we got to go back to the beginning why do we have malocclusion we have
malocclusion because our jaws are underdeveloped because of an improper diet soft foods not
you know eating a sandy gritty diet not chewing meat off the bones using pacifiers using bottles
not breastfeeding exclusively for two to three years like they do in tribal countries etc etc
our first world diet and way of life does not contribute to good occlusion that's just how it is
so luckily we can do things about it so what this does and there's a variety of different
iterations of this and formations of this for class two or class three bytes
this one is meant for class to think about this for a second class two so it's got the um
the labia bow which is well adapted to the front teeth here which prevents the front teeth from
moving forward right prevents the class 2 from getting worse and this acrylic pad is not touching
the lower teeth it's actually a couple millimeters away so it acts almost like a lip bumper which
prevents the lip from pushing those teeth back if you're sucking your lip or anything like that
and the cheeks it keeps them out of the way so that the tongue can expand the arches and it also
puts the teeth in an edge to edge position which encourages the lower jaw to grow so it's a very
effective clasp to appliance the problem is it's a one-piece appliance it's incredibly
difficult to talk with it in it's incredibly bulky and you can't make any facial gestures
like you can't it's uncomfortable if you do you can't smile you can't you basically have to be
stoic so it's not the most fun experience you really need to try to wear it full time it's not
so you know for the patients that maybe are home schooled or you can pop it out if you need to give
a presentation or something or um you know but you probably need to wear it for a good six to
nine months like any functional appliance for it to work so very young appliance you know patients
seven eight nine they're sometimes cool to wear stuff like this to school they think it's cool
i remember when i was in third grade i died to have something like this it's so cool especially
if you could pick a color of the acrylic so you know just because you don't think you'd like it
as an adult you'd be surprised seven eight nine year olds might be fine with it and it works
really really well now the opposite version the class three version or the franco three is gonna
be opposite you're gonna have the pad up here allowing the tongue to be able to flare the upper
incisors and you're going to have the bow down here not allowing the incisors to move forward um
i guess i don't know that it works as well i would still prefer the reverse pull headgear just
because there is a force attraction being applied to the upper jaw but i mean it's definitely an
option that's out there so and i think it's cost effective it probably only cost a couple hundred
dollars to wear so you don't have to attach it to braces or anything like that so definitely
something to keep in mind um especially if cost is an issue and if you think compliance is going to
be good and you know what just create a compliance contract basically you're saying hey this only
going to work if you wear it there's no guarantees if you don't wear it that's what you're going
to get you're not going to get anything worse if you just improve at 50 it's going to be 50
better you know if they're kind of half compliant and you always finish the rest up in braces so
i mean for patients that are on the budget i think you should really
have this option because not everyone is going to be able to afford invisalign with m.a that's just
the lab fee is too high you know so if we can make this for a third of the lab fee and really have no
i mean probably very little to no monthly office visits you know they just wear it and check it
you shouldn't really have to do any adjustments on it or anything like that or re-scans
i think it's a very cost-effective way to help to improve malocclusion in kids
so um don't roll it out all right everything old is new again right it still works thanks