Twelve to twenty-four months is the honest range for an adult, and age is not the brake — untreated gum disease and heavy grinding are what slow a case down.
Most adult cases take twelve to twenty-four months, with mild crowding or a relapsed lower arch finishing in six to nine. Teeth move at a broadly similar biological rate at forty as at fourteen; what differs is that an adult has denser bone, no jaw growth left to exploit, and often missing teeth, old crowns and a periodontal history that all constrain the plan. Age itself is not the brake — the condition of what is already in your mouth is.
Three things push a case beyond two years. Untreated gum disease has to be stabilised before any force is applied, because moving a tooth through an inflamed periodontium accelerates bone loss, and that is a separate course of treatment starting at €250. Missing teeth require space to be opened or closed deliberately, which takes months of its own. And heavy nocturnal grinding, which a great many adults do, works against planned tooth movement every night.
There is no upper age limit for orthodontics. We routinely treat patients in their fifties and sixties, and the biology cooperates as long as bone support is healthy and the gums are not bleeding. Existing crowns and implants complicate the mechanics — an implant cannot be moved and instead becomes an anchor point — but they rarely rule treatment out. What does rule it out is active periodontal disease that the patient does not want to treat first.
Treatment starts at €1,400, and the fee reflects the plan rather than the month count, so a case that runs longer than predicted does not become more expensive. For patients travelling from abroad we compress records, scans and the first fitting into a single visit and set review points around trips you are already making. We would rather stretch a case to twenty months around a workable travel schedule than rush it to fourteen and invite relapse.
No, provided your gums and bone support are healthy. We assess the periodontium first, and if there is active disease we treat it before starting, because moving teeth through inflamed bone does harm rather than good.
It changes the mechanics more than the duration. A bridge cannot be moved as separate teeth and may need sectioning or replacement at the end of treatment, which we plan for from the first appointment.