With 45+ years collective experience in their careers, Dr Mo Al-Dujaili, Dr Azza Al-Ani, and Dr Adriana Perez are highly qualified specialist orthodontists, and are fantastic at what they do.
Shakespeare Orthodontic provide top-quality braces services in Auckland, offering tailored orthodontic solutions to help you achieve a healthy, straight smile.
Whether you’re looking for traditional metal braces, clear options, or Invisalign, our expert team ensures a comfortable and effective treatment plan designed just for you. With a commitment to personalised care and the latest orthodontic technology, we make your journey to a beautiful smile as seamless as possible.
Book your consultation today and start your path to a more confident you!
Braces are a proven orthodontic solution that gently realigns your teeth for a straighter, more confident smile. By applying consistent pressure over time, braces gradually shift teeth into the correct position.
This process works by using brackets attached to each tooth, connected by a wire that is regularly adjusted to maintain the right amount of pressure. As the teeth move, the bone around them adapts, allowing for safe and steady progress towards perfect alignment.
Modern braces technology has advanced significantly, offering more discreet and comfortable options for patients. Innovations like self-ligating brackets, which reduce friction and speed up treatment, and clear or ceramic braces, which blend with the natural tooth colour, make orthodontic treatment less noticeable.
Properly aligned teeth are easier to clean, reducing the risk of cavities and gum disease. With braces, you’ll enjoy a long-lasting smile that boosts your confidence while contributing to your overall wellbeing.
With four clinics across Auckland: Takapuna, Epsom, Howick &Warkworth, we have a location in Auckland near you. Call us today on 09 216 6888
Modern braces come with several advantages over their traditional counterparts, offering patients more comfort, aesthetics, and efficiency during treatment. Here are some key benefits:
Discreet Appearance: Modern braces, such as ceramic or clear braces, are designed to blend in with the natural colour of your teeth. This makes them much less noticeable than traditional metal braces, offering a more subtle option for those concerned about aesthetics.
Faster Treatment Times: Advances like self-ligating braces have reduced friction between the wire and brackets, allowing teeth to move more freely. This can shorten the treatment time and reduce the number of adjustments needed.
Improved Comfort: Modern braces are smaller, lighter, and more streamlined than traditional braces. With smoother materials and more precise fittings, they minimise discomfort, irritation, and pressure on the gums and cheeks.
Durability and Strength: Newer braces materials, including high-quality ceramics and advanced metals, are not only more comfortable but also stronger. They can withstand the forces needed to align teeth while remaining reliable throughout treatment.
Customisable Options: Many modern braces offer customisation, such as coloured elastics, giving patients—especially younger ones—a chance to personalise their braces while still receiving effective treatment.
These advancements make modern braces an attractive option for our Auckland patients seeking a balance between aesthetics, comfort, and efficiency.
Although dentists can provide braces treatment, an orthodontist has had a tremendous amount of extra training to develop specialist expertise and knowledge. This allows them to plan every tooth movement that is to occur with precision and predictability so they can get you the smile you deserve!
A significant amount of time is spent planning Invisalign cases and every patient’s needs are considered. This ensures safe and predictable results for every patient, avoiding many risks and complications that can occur along the way. That way, tooth movement will happen in the fastest possible time.
Specialist Orthodontist = same costs + faster treatment
+ best results + less problems… a no brainer!
The average case with us is around the $9,800 mark. However, this is a tricky question to answer as no two people’s teeth are identical. The complexity and duration of your treatment, as well as additional dental work required, all have an impact on the cost.
Also, there are many different types of braces: traditional metal braces, ceramic braces, self-ligating braces, and lingual braces. You can appreciate that there is a huge range of costs for a patient.
Braces can start at $400 dollars for retainers only, while for very difficult cases, costs can be in excess of $12,800 (e.g. for a case that requires bite and jaw corrections, and lengthy treatment).
This is why it is really important to see a specialist orthodontist who is experienced in braces treatment, who will advise you if treatment with braces is right for you and which type of brtaces would be the most appropriate option.
Call Shakespeare Orthodontics for a FREE, no-obligation consultation with a specialist orthodontist in one of our Auckland clinics.
BDS | DClinDent | MRACDS-Orth | MOrthRCSEd
Mo is a Specialist Orthodontist. He grew up in New Zealand and Australia, returning to Dunedin to gain his specialist degree – Clinical Doctorate in Orthodontics… Learn more
With 45+ years collective experience in their careers, Dr Mo Al-Dujaili, Dr Azza Al-Ani, and Dr Adriana Perez are highly qualified specialist orthodontists, and are fantastic at what they do.
Having braces makes for a plaque and food trap. Food and other bits can easily get stuck between your teeth and around the braces. Therefore, it is more important than ever to brush and floss regularly.
Proper oral hygiene will ensure that the teeth and gums are healthy during and after treatment, which means teeth move as fast as possible. Patients who do not keep their teeth clean may require more frequent visits to the dentist for a professional clean.
Adults who have a history of gum disease will need to see a periodontist (gum specialist) regularly during the course of orthodontic treatment. If oral hygiene is not up to a high standard, then the risk of developing decay is high, and treatment may need to be stopped early to avoid long-term issues.
We will be keeping a close eye on the health of the gums and teeth during your treatment.
All the different bracket designs will do what they are meant to once an archwire (the wire going between the teeth or brackets) is inserted and activated – they will move the teeth/tooth to a straighter position.
Without going into too much detail, brackets are precise and delicate attachments that are glued lightly to teeth. They are not meant to be superglued, as we need to think of removing them.
Sometimes, with limited care and not following the instruction provided, brackets can come loose from the teeth, or the archwires bend and stick out… this relatively small annoyance is about the only “emergency” you can expect to deal with when you have braces on. Nothing serious.
The more of these breakages that occur, the longer the treatment is guaranteed to take!
You can smile and rest assured, that for most of our patients, this will not feature as an issue
When braces go on, there must be some changes that occur to your diet. For the first couple of days, you should ideally stick to soft foods. Avoiding tough meats, hard bread, nuts and raw vegetables is a must, as this is a wonderful method of pulling braces off and having breakages!
Before long, you’ll be able to bite an apple again… gently! You will learn that you can chop carrots and apples into small pieces and eat them, without any trouble.
Chewy foods – foods like toffies, mints, chewing gum lollies, bagels, hard rolls and liquorice
Crunchy foods – foods like popcorn, ice, chips, crunchy cookies, chocolate bars like “Crunchie” bars, pretzels and hard crackers
Sticky and gooey foods – foods like caramels, muesli bars and sugar gum
Hard foods – foods like nuts and hard candy
Foods you have to bite into – foods like corn-on-the-cob, apples, carrots, popcorn, lamb ribs, chocolate bars and crunchy cereal; these are notorious for breaking brackets and archwires. Apples, carrots and celery need to be sliced up before eating
Chewing on hard things e.g. fingernails, pens and pencils, hair clips can damage braces and the teeth. Damaging braces will cause treatment delays and result in additional charges, so it is best to avoid breakages.
Eating during the braces journey is tricky, especially at the start. For the first few days, your teeth and gums may be slightly sore, and you might not be sure what foods are easy to eat with your new braces. These are some examples of foods we think are best to eat with braces:
Dairy – foods like soft cheese, pudding, milk-based smoothies
Bread – foods like soft tortillas, pancakes, muffins without nuts
Grains – foods like pasta, soft-cooked rice
Meats/poultry – foods like well-cooked chicken (off the bone), meatballs, cured meats
Seafood – fish like tuna, salmon, white fish
Vegetables – veggies like mashed potatoes, steamed carrots, spinach, beans
Fruits – examples include bananas, pureed fruit, applesauce
Treats – examples include ice cream without nuts, milkshakes, velvet cake
We won’t lie to you…getting braces put on by one of our orthodontists in the chair is one of the easiest things you can have done in your mouth. The only thing is, it can get a little tiring towards the end of the initial “braces-on” appointment. We can compare it to your mouth feeling like it has run a marathon!
Some people may start to feel general tenderness within the first 3-5 days in their mouth – teeth may feel tender to biting pressures. This can be relieved by taking simple pain-relief medications like paracetamol. Rinsing your mouth with a warm salt-water mouthwash may also help (dissolve 5 mL of salt in 200 mL of warm water, and rinse for 1 minute).
In the first one to two weeks after getting braces on, the lips, cheeks and tongue may also become irritated as they become accustomed to the surfaces of the braces. During that time, you can put wax on the braces to lessen this irritation. On the day you get your braces, we’ll show you how to use this wax before you leave the clinic.
It is a really strange feeling to give your teeth a wiggle and them feeling loose. Don’t worry, it is normal as the teeth need to loosen before they can move , this is to be expected throughout treatment (especially at the beginning when lots of teeth are maligned). Once the teeth settle, they will once more become rigid and fixed, in their new position.
Although it is relatively uncommon, do not be alarmed if a wire starts to poke and cause irritation – let us know and we will work with you to sort it out. If it happens during our non-working hours, then these are some ways that may ease the irritation until your visit with us:
– use the tip of the handle of a spoon to gently push the wire back into the bracket or bend it downwards. Alternatively,
– use new nail-clippers to snip the end of the wire that is causing the irritation. Please don’t use anything bigger or sharper than that – this often creates more trouble for us.
At the beginning of treatment, it will take some time to get used to having your new brackets and bands, and to adjust your diet accordingly. As a result, you may find that a bracket or band, especially at the back, may become loose. The most common cause of loosening a bracket is eating things that are hard.
Please be mindful, as loose brackets and appliance breakages cause delay and elongate your overall treatment time. If there is a breakage, use your phone to take a photo of the broken bracket and email it to us as soon as possible – that way, we can assess whether we need to resolve the issue earlier than scheduled.
Usually, a loose bracket or band does not require an emergency visit to the office – often, we will organise to put the bracket or band on at your regular appointment. However, if the bracket that has become loose is the anchor bracket that you are wearing elastics to, then we will need to organise to see you more urgently, so that you go back to wearing your elastics quickly. Remember that elastics move teeth, so no elastics = no movement = considerable delay to your treatment.
To successfully complete your treatment plan and give you the very best results possible, we must work together to ensure that your appliances do what they are meant to do.
If you play any contact sports, it is important that you let us know. A mouthguard is recommended when playing these sports, and this remains so even with braces. In most cases, the “boil and bite type” is the best type, because your teeth are continually moving with braces.
If your are involved in a significant accident whilst playing a contact sport, please always seek medical advice. If the accident involves your face, mouth or gums – check your mouth and the appliances immediately. If teeth have loosened or the appliance is damaged, give us a call immediately so we can get you in for an urgent appointment.
If any teeth are displaced, please do not wait for a few days, contact us immediately. If after-hours, please see attend an A&E dental practice. In the meantime, get some first aid and treat any discomfort as you would treat any general soreness.
True orthodontic emergencies which are those that require an immediate appointment, are very rare. Examples of these include: the jaw locking – open or closed, a fall or blow to the face that knocks teeth loose, or an infection around the teeth with braces in place. If any of these occur, contact our practice as soon as feasible.
If you are uncertain as to what constitutes an emergency, it is better to call our office and let us know what is up. We will make arrangements to see you as soon as possible. If after-hours and you require immediate clinical attention, please attend an A&E dental practice.