Straight answers.

Metal braces run ₹35,000–55,000 all-inclusive. Ceramic ₹50,000–75,000, self-ligating ₹60,000–95,000, clear aligners (Invisalign) ₹1.8L–3.5L, lingual ₹2.5L–4L. The range covers consultations, X-rays, all monthly visits, and one set of retainers. Your written quote after the free consultation is exact and locked.

Yes, no-cost EMI through Bajaj Finserv and similar partners, over 6 to 24 months. Metal braces work out from about ₹1,500 a month and clear aligners from about ₹6,000 a month. We set it up for you at the clinic.

Yes. Thirty minutes with the orthodontist: clinical examination, honest advice on your options, and a written idea of cost. No pressure, no obligation, no hidden charge.

No. Once you sign, the quoted price is locked even if your case runs past the estimate. Extras that could apply, like extractions or replacement retainers, are told to you upfront at the consultation, not discovered later.

There's mild soreness for 3–5 days after fitting and after each adjustment, like a tight hairband on your teeth. Normal pain relief handles it. The fitting itself is painless; no injections are involved.

Most cases finish in 8–24 months. Mild crowding can be done in under a year; complex bites take longer. We give you an honest estimate after seeing your X-rays, and we tell you what could speed it up or slow it down.

No. About a third of our patients are over 30, and we routinely treat patients in their 40s and 50s. Healthy teeth and gums move at any age. Adults usually pick clear aligners or ceramic braces for discretion.

Both straighten teeth equally well for most cases. Choose aligners if being invisible and removable matters more than cost. Choose fixed braces for lower cost, complex bites, or if you'd rather not manage 22-hours-a-day wear discipline. The free consultation tells you which 1–2 options fit your case.

Yes, this is non-negotiable at any good clinic. Full-time for a few months, then nights only, for life. Skipping retainers is how straightened teeth drift back. One set of retainers is included in every treatment price.

Around age 7, even if the teeth look fine. Crossbites, narrow jaws, and habit effects (thumb-sucking, mouth breathing) are far easier to correct while the jaw is growing. Most kids need nothing at that visit; the ones who do save years of treatment later.

Yes. An infected baby tooth hurts, can abscess, and can damage the adult tooth underneath. Losing baby teeth early also creates space problems that show up later as crooked adult teeth. Our pedodontists treat children gently, without force or fear.

Yes. Smile Align is a specialty dental clinic: our visiting consultant panel covers root canal treatment, implants, crowns and bridges, gum treatment, wisdom tooth removal, fillings, cleaning, and children's dentistry, all at the clinic, on one set of records.

Not with modern anaesthesia; the procedure itself is painless. The pain people fear is actually the infected tooth before treatment. Some soreness for a day or two afterwards is normal and settles with standard pain relief.

Opposite the post office in Kunnamangalam, Kozhikode 673571, on the Wayanad road side of the city, a few minutes from NIT Calicut. Parking is available nearby.

Monday to Friday 10 AM to 8 PM, Saturday 10 AM to 6 PM, Sunday closed. Weekday evening and Saturday slots are the most popular; book those a few days ahead.

Fastest is WhatsApp: fill the short form on our contact page and it opens a chat with your details ready to send. We reply within 2 working hours. You can also call us directly during clinic hours.

Any registered dentist can legally fit braces. An orthodontist has completed a further three-year MDS specialisation focused entirely on how teeth and jaws move. For mild crowding the difference is often small. For bite problems, cases needing extractions, and growing children, it changes the outcome rather than just the price. Dr. Athulya is BDS, MDS, with Indian Board of Orthodontics Phase II cleared.

Ask each clinic what is inside the number. Consultations, X-rays, the appliance, every adjustment visit, and retainers at the end should all be included. Many low headline quotes exclude two or three of those and the gap appears later. Ask also whether the price is locked if treatment runs longer than estimated. Ours is.

For a treatment lasting a year or more, yes, and no good clinic will be offended. Bring your X-rays if you have them. If two clinics propose meaningfully different plans, ask each to explain why, because the reasoning tells you more than the plan does.

At minimum: clinical photographs, an OPG X-ray, and usually a lateral cephalogram. Impressions or a digital scan for aligner cases. Treatment planned from a visual examination alone is planned on incomplete information, and this is a reasonable thing to ask about before you commit.

For most cases, yes. Modern aligner systems handle a wide range of movements well. Fixed braces still have an edge in some complex bite corrections and in cases needing significant tooth movement through bone. The free consultation will tell you honestly whether your case is well suited to aligners or whether braces would give a better result.

22 hours. That is the single biggest factor in whether aligner treatment works, and it is a genuine commitment. You take them out to eat and to brush, and that is it. Patients who wear them 16 to 18 hours a day get slower results and often need mid-course corrections.

Rarely, in normal conversation. Small tooth-coloured attachments are bonded to some teeth to grip the aligners, and these are visible close up if someone is looking. Most patients report that nobody notices unless they mention it.

Direct-to-consumer aligners are cheaper because they skip the in-person examination, the X-rays, and the supervision. That works out for genuinely simple cases and goes badly for anyone with an undiagnosed bite problem, gum disease, or root issues, none of which you can see in a selfie. At minimum, get examined in person before starting any aligner treatment, wherever you buy it.

Yes, exactly as with braces. Teeth drift back regardless of how they were straightened. One set of retainers is included in your treatment price, and nightly wear is for life.

The list is shorter than people fear. Avoid hard nuts, ice, hard boiled sweets, popcorn kernels, and anything chewy and sticky. Raw apples and carrots are fine cut into pieces and chewed with the back teeth rather than bitten into at the front. Most broken brackets come from this small list.

Brush after every meal, angling the brush above and below the brackets, and use an interdental brush to get between the wire and the tooth. A water flosser helps but does not replace brushing. The patients who get white marks on their teeth after treatment are almost always the ones who skipped this in the first few months.

Slightly, for a few days, and then not at all. Lingual braces behind the teeth take longer to adjust to, usually a couple of weeks. Aligners cause a mild lisp for the first day or two with each new set for some people.

Yes to both. For contact sports, wear an orthodontic mouthguard, which we can arrange. Wind instrument players adapt within a few weeks; brass players find it takes longest, and wax over the brackets helps a lot in the early period.

Treatment stalls, and it stalls for longer than the gap. Wires stay active past their useful point, teeth stop moving efficiently, and cases routinely run months over because of a few missed visits. If you need to travel or take a break, tell us and we will plan around it rather than leaving an appliance unattended.