Video: What is a Palate Expander?

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A palate expander is a device cemented to the roof of the mouth that creates more space to straighten teeth through orthodontics. Discover the uses and application of a palate expander, usually worn from four-to-six months, with tips from a licensed dental assistant in this free video on oral hygiene.

Video Transcript

So are you interested in knowing what a palate expander is? Or your general dentist recommended for you to have one. Well my name is Michelle and I'm a dental assistant with Solutions and I'm here to show you exactly what a palate expander is. This is exactly what one looks like, it's a device that we place on the roof of your mouth. It's actually cemented into usually one to two teeth, there even sometimes four teeth depending on the severity of the case. They cement the palate expander into the roof of your mouth and if you look closely there's a little tiny hole in the middle of the expander and what you would do in this case is they would give you a device to use to turn that one to two to three times a day. And what that does is that it pulls these screws that are in the device, it actually pushes the screws out by one to two millimeters. And then as you are doing that consistently on a basis it's actually expanding your upper palate and the purpose for that is sometimes if you are going through braces treatment and your doctor prescribes you for the palate expander, mainly it's probably because your upper arch is very narrow. So in order to create more room to straighten out your teeth he wants to expand your upper palate. So nine times out of ten he'll prescribe you a what we call then is a palate expander. The device looks just like this, it's pretty, at first when you have it placed in your mouth it takes about a few days or a couple of weeks to get used to depending on the patient and the age of the patient. But after wearing it it's cemented into your mouth so you don't have to worry about taking it in or out and then after wearing it over a period of four to six months that's when you get the full expansion that you need and then at that time your dentist or your orthodontist will prescribe for you to remove it or he'll take it out for you. So once again my name is Michelle and I'm a dental assistant with Solutions and I just explained to you on what a palate expander is.

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What is a Palate Expander?

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