"Fashion braces" are a cheap and unlicensed dental treatment trending in Atlanta, reports CBS affiliate WGCL-TV.
The colorful braces come with no guarantee to actually help with teeth alignment. Dozens of Instagram pages across Georgia show unlicensed workers offering to do the procedure at a low rate. Several Atlanta listings call the procedure nonrefundable. In some cases, the total cost is as low as $300, reports WGCL-TV.
On each social media page, the workers note that they aren't licensed dentists or orthodontists.
"[There] are reports of these fashion braces coming off while people are sleeping and patients actually choking or even aspirating them," said Paul Trotter, DMD, an orthodontist in Georgia. "If you move the teeth in the wrong direction, they might move outside the bone that actually holds them in your mouth. You could end up losing a tooth."