Dr. Allison Hamada sees her patients through the lens of a mother.
“When I come across a new patient and I’m a little stumped on which treatment plan to take, one sure way for me to make a decision right away is to pretend the child is mine,” Hamada said. “Then it becomes crystal clear right away.”
Hamada’s practice, Hamada Orthodontics, offers a highly trained staff with more than 35 years of combined experience that ensures patients have a happy, upbeat and clean environment.
“Just about all of us are moms,” Hamada said. “We know what it’s like to be a mom and be faced with seeing your child struggling or dealing with different social challenges.”For that reason, Hamada understands the importance of aesthetics to each of her patients: great smiles create confidence and healthy ones allow kids to focus. That gave Hamada the inspiration to shift her practice to the primary use of ceramic and clear brackets for patients who need braces.
“It’s to eliminate those gray smiles you traditionally see,” Hamada said. “It’s something I really started to notice (with the children) around my own kids at school, you see all of the older kids with braces running out the gate. It’s not the best look, so I made the call and said, ‘We want to go all ceramic.’”
Fixed, bonded brackets are of course the traditional method of correcting teeth. But Hamada and her staff aren’t settling for convention for tradition’s sake: the practice has introduced Invisalign, a method of moving teeth that uses a clear plastic, tray system instead of traditional bonded metal or ceramic braces.
The aligners are virtually invisible and fit snugly over the teeth. Each aligner shifts the teeth slightly, moving them horizontally and vertically and even rotating them when needed. The aligners are engineered to use the right amount of force in the right place at the right time. And they’re removable, adding a new level of convenience.
“They’re removable, so if you have an event to go to or something like that, you can take them out,” Hamada said. “There are no food or drink restrictions as, of course, there are with braces. And aesthetically, they look so much better.”
Hamada said the plastic used to create the aligners is much improved and more resilient than before since Invisalign has revamped and re-engineered the product.
It also allows the orthodontist much greater control over the accuracy of the treatment.
“For me, it’s hard to believe, but it’s true,” Hamada said. “We’re able to program into the Invisalign prescription exactly how many degrees we want the teeth to move, as opposed to just getting close or in the ballpark with braces. We can fix any discrepancies as treatment comes to an end. We start with the end in mind with Invisalign.”
She said the treatment is totally different than those seen before and yields an entirely new way of thinking and treatment planning.
“We’re basically moving from an analog world into a digital world,” Hamada said. “We’re involved in all kind of Invisalign study clubs and fellowships that allow us to treat very complex cases.
“There’s a lot of learning, a lot of hours, that have gone into this. It’s like going back to residency. But it’s definitely the future and I’m excited about it.”
Hamada Orthodontics has offices in Destrehan (131 Ormond Center Court) and Luling (118 Lakewood Drive). For more information or to schedule an appointment, call (985)725-0509.
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