Open wide and get ready for the best states for orthodontists!
I never had to get braces, but my sister did, and she had hers for about four years. I think the standard length of time for braces is two years, but she consistently forgot to wear the rubber bands they give you to correct overbites, so the time just kept getting tacked on. This meant more trips to the orthodontist for dreaded cleanings and more time being forced to eat pizza with a fork and knife. I’m not kidding. There are a lot of things you can’t eat with braces, like popcorn or apples, because those things could get stuck in the brackets and break them. Broken brackets are annoying and mean, you guessed it, another trip to the orthodontist. I think they purposely design braces to have issues so you have to go to the dentist more often.
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Orthodontists are a specialized form of dentist that prevent, diagnose, and treat dental irregularities “bad bites,” which can be caused by overbites, underbites, and crooked teeth. Orthodontists don’t only use braces to correct these issues, though. They may also recommend clear teeth aligners like Invisalign depending on the situation. Orthodontists can do all the things a regular dentist can do as well as the specialized services pertaining to malocclusions, which is just a fancy way of saying bad bites. While a regular dentist mostly just cleans your teeth, an orthodontist focuses on perfect teeth. If you want the best teeth cleaning of your life, check out the best states for dental hygienists.
In order to create this list, we found the average annual salary from Salary and the cost of living index from the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center. We took the average of those two criteria to rank the states. Cost of living is important to consider because if a state is ridiculously expensive to live in, it’ll take a really high salary to offset it. The states with the best combination of low cost of living and high salary are at the top of the list because they’re the best scenario.
Continue reading to learn all about the best states for orthodontists.
