Orthodontic Advice

We may ask you to send us photographs of your teeth from time to time. This may be to help us remotely assess if your oral hygiene will support the use of braces. To enable us to make such an assessment, you will need to disclose your teeth with plaque-search tablets or similar to identify plaque and send us pictures to assess your mouth. The pictures must be taken carefully in the manner described below.

If you do have a brace in place already, and need remote advice on your teeth, we will ask you to provide us with photos as described below too.

Step 1

Smart phones are an excellent tool to capture detailed information from the mouth and help us to provide appropriate telephonic advice.

Identify a smart phone (yours, a friend or a relative) with a good quality camera.

Make sure you switch the camera flash to ‘on’

Also identify two ‘medium’ sized table spoons. These will be used to hold the cheeks away.

You will be asked to take 3 photos. Be sure you understand the difference between landscape and portrait.

Step 2 – Portrait view

Please take both the table spoons to hold the cheeks out of the way, and then take a portrait shot.

The table spoons need to be 1/2 in the mouth, and 1/2 out of the mouth to correctly retract the cheeks and provide us with full visibility of the FRONT teeth.

Make sure that your back teeth are biting together before taking the shot, otherwise we will not be able to correctly assess you.

Please try your best to centre the shot and create a magnification that is similar to the following shot:

Step 3 – Right landscape view

Please take the table-spoon to the right cheek, 1/2 in the right cheek, and 1/2 out, and pull the right cheek out as far as you can. Hold your phone in landscape view, with flash on and try and capture a shot with the magnification shown below. If you get too close the flash will not adequately light up all the teeth and the table-spoon will be in the way.

Make sure that your back teeth are biting together before taking the shot, otherwise we will not be able to correctly assess you.

This view is best taken at 45 degrees to the front of the face.

Step 4 – Left landscape view

Please take the table-spoon to the left cheek, 1/2 in the left cheek, and 1/2 out, and pull the left cheek out as far as you can. Hold your phone in landscape view, with flash on and try and capture a shot with the magnification shown below. If you get too close the flash will not adequately light up all the teeth and the table-spoon will be in the way.

Make sure that your back teeth are biting together before taking the shot, otherwise we will not be able to correctly assess you.

This view is best taken at 45 degrees to the front of the face.

Step 5 – E mail high quality pictures

Your smart-phone will allow you to e mail high quality pictures or low resolution pictures to the practice. Please ensure that you e mail high resolution pictures to :

reception@antwerphousedentistry.co.uk

With your e mail, please title the e mail : ‘Orthodontic Photos’ in the subject line

In the body text, please write the full patient name, and date of birth

Next Steps

As we receive pictures we will assess hygiene and/or orthodontic progress, and will phone you to provide telephone advice.

If your e mailed pictures are unclear, we will send an e mail request to retake pictures again so that we can undertake an accurate assessment.

P.S. DON’T FORGET TO DISCLOSE YOUR TEETH BEFORE SENDING US YOUR PHOTOS (DON’T BRUSH THIS OFF AS WE NEED TO ASSESS THE APPEARANCE).

Thank you for your co-operation.

The Antwerp Orthodontics Team.

Click the PDF sign below to access our Orthodontic Treatment Guide.