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What is Cleidocranial Dysplasia, the cause of Gaten's dental condition?
So you've seen Gaten Matarazzo's smile in Stranger Things, and probably wondered why it doesn't look like most kids'. That difference isn't cosmetic. It comes from a rare genetic disorder, cleidocranial dysplasia (CCD).
A mutation in the RUNX2 gene causes CCD.
The gene guides bone and tooth development.
In people with CCD, that signal gets scrambled.
The result? Delayed closure of the skull's soft spots, collarbones that never fully develop.
Most visibly in Gaten's case, a mouth full of surprises.
For Gaten, the dental impact grabs your attention.
His baby teeth just wouldn't come out on time.
The adult teeth took a different path.
Instead of pushing through, they got stuck below the gums.
His body kept making extras, supernumerary teeth.
This wasn't just a few extras.
Gaten mentioned he had dozens removed over multiple procedures.
For CCD patients, estimates go up to around 60 extras.
That's a lot of surgeries for a child.
Gaten had his first round at age seven.
By Stranger Things first aired, he'd had four oral surgeries.
CCD doesn't just add extra teeth—it often means permanent teeth are missing too.
You end up with a chaotic mix: extra baby teeth, adult teeth trapped, gaps where teeth never formed.
Orthodontists call it a 'mess' for a reason.
To understand why Gaten's smile changed so much, start with CCD. If you're weighing this up, our guide to Matt Rife's veneers covers what to check first.
Early seasons show his gap-toothed grin with missing lateral incisors.
Later, after orthodontic work and more extractions, his smile filled in.
Puberty alone didn't bring that change.
Years of planning, surgery, and braces shaped it.
CCD occurs in roughly one in a million individuals.
It's rare.
When Gaten spoke openly about it on a hit Netflix show, the condition got visibility.
For anyone looking up Gaten Matarazzo teeth, the before-and-after photos show what treated CCD looks like.
How are Dustin's character and Gaten's real-life dental story connected?
Anyone who watched Stranger Things remembers Dustin's lisp and gap-toothed grin.
That wasn't just a character quirk.
Gaten brought his own experience to the role.
The lisp and missing lateral incisors? Straight from his medical history.
Gaten was born with cleidocranial dysplasia (CCD).
It's a rare genetic condition that messes with bone and tooth development.
CCD affects about one in a million people.
In Gaten's case, it left him with stubborn baby teeth and almost no permanent incisors.
By age 12, he'd had several procedures.
The show's creators wrote Dustin's missing teeth and speech quirks into the script.
It's a rare moment where a real‑life medical story makes the character more human.
So what did the 'after' look like? Gaten's dental journey spanned years.
He began using a partial denture around age 15 as a temporary replacement. Compare that with partial dentures.
Then multiple surgeries to extract retained baby teeth and prepare for implants.
By season 3 of Stranger Things, his smile looked fuller and more symmetrical.
On talk shows he showed off his new implants.
It took a team of oral surgeons, orthodontists, and a lot of patience.
Here's the rough timeline I pieced together from interviews.
Early childhood meant frequent dental visits and extracting baby teeth that wouldn't budge.
By age 12 to 13, he wore a partial denture to fill the gaps. Dustin's lisp was written right into the show.
Between 14 and 15, the remaining baby teeth were extracted and bone grafting was done.
At 16 to 17, he had dental implants placed, two front incisors.
After 18, the final restorations and cosmetic adjustments came.
From available info, it's mostly implants and the natural result of fixing missing teeth.
The before‑and‑after difference is striking, not because of Hollywood veneers but because his bite is functional.
CCD repair aims for function first, appearance second.
Gaten doesn't mind questions about his teeth.
He uses his platform to talk about CCD, even starting a clothing line that donates to CCD research.
For fans, watching Dustin's character develop alongside Gaten's dental journey adds authenticity.
The gap in his childhood smile was real.
The 'after' is the result of years of work.
How did Gaten's teeth change season by season in Stranger Things?
If you binge Stranger Things, Gaten's smile shifts subtly across four seasons.
He was born with cleidocranial dysplasia (CCD).
It slows the shedding of baby teeth and the arrival of adult teeth.
It shows right on screen.
Season 1 (2016)
In the first season, Dustin's trademark lisp was real, Gaten still had several baby teeth. You can spot the gaps and smaller teeth that hadn't been replaced yet. At that point, he hadn't had any dental surgeries yet.
His smile looked authentic, true to his age and condition.
Season 2 (2017)
Filming started about a year later.
That year, Gaten had his first round of extractions to make room for permanent teeth.
The change is subtle: fewer baby molars, a slightly fuller smile.
He said recovery was rough, but the on‑screen effect is a more 'grown‑up' Dustin.
Season 3 (2019)
By the summer of 2019, Gaten had had multiple procedures. The biggest visual shift comes here: his upper front teeth had finally erupted. The gap that was obvious in seasons 1 and 2 closed somewhat. He also wore a retainer or partial appliance on and off during filming. The result is a much more typical teenage smile, though still with some spacing on the bottom.
Season 4 (2022)
The two‑year gap between seasons 3 and 4 allowed even more dental maturation. Gaten's adult teeth have mostly come through now. The shift from season 1 is huge (no baby teeth left)no trace of a lisp. He's talked about how the surgeries, including the later jaw surgery, changed more than his smile. It changed his confidence too. Watch any longer Dustin monologue later in the series, there's not a hint of the old speech difficulty.
How did braces and dentures play a role behind the smile?
Gaten Matarazzo never hid his dental journey. Starting from season one of Stranger Things, he spoke openly about cleidocranial dysplasia, a condition that gave him extra teeth and locked his adult ones under the gums. That openness turned his smile into a topic of conversation. But what that smile hides is ten years of orthodontics and a well-designed dental prosthetic.
Braces came early. And they stayed a while.
Gaten Matarazzo was eleven or twelve when he first got braces. Not unusual for a kid, except his case was anything but routine. CCD meant his baby teeth didn't fall out on schedule, and extra teeth crowded everything. Surgeons removed fourteen extra teeth in one operation. After that, braces had room to work-slowly pulling the remaining permanent teeth into position. The process took years, and multiple rounds of brackets (rubber bands)adjustments. By the time Stranger Things Season 3 aired, his braces were gone. The result: a straighter, wider smile that still wasn't fully finished.
How were missing laterals filled with partial dentures?
Even after braces did their job, two teeth never showed up. Gaten is missing his lateral incisors - the teeth just beside the front two. CCD doesn't always form those. So he bear a partial denture, a thin retainer with two fake teeth attached. You've seen it on screen, and it's removable. He pops it out to eat, snaps it back for appearances. He's called it 'a piece of plastic' in interviews, no shame attached, just function. A single denture bridges the gap braces couldn't touch.
So days of braces plus a tiny prosthetic, that's the combo responsible for Gaten Matarazzo's smile today. The transformation isn't just alignment of what already existed. It also it's also about replacing what never came in.
For fans tracking his smile across four seasons, the gaten matarazzo teeth arc is a lesson in dental persistence. Braces did the groundwork. The denture filled in those gaps. Together, they made that smile work.
How did Gaten Matarazzo influence dental health awareness?
Back in 2016, a twelve-year-old with a gap-toothed smile walked onto our screens in Hawkins, Indiana. Gaten Matarazzo didn't just play Dustin Henderson, he brought his real-life dental condition, cleidocranial dysplasia, into the role. And that changed things. Cleveland Clinic saw appointment spikes from families who'd finally put a name to what their kids had. The numbers tell the story: about 1 in 1 million people have CCD. Before Stranger Things, most had never heard of it.
Matarazzo's openness about his own gaten matarazzo tooth journeying (the braces)the surgeries, the missing adult teeth that never came in, did more than any public health campaign could. He talked about it on talk shows, openly. On set, he made jokes about his 'shark teeth'. And that normalized the whole thing. Parents started recognizing the pattern in their own children (the delayed eruption)the extra baby teeth, the jaw that looks a little different. Getting an early diagnosis for CCD can save kids years of confusion. His producers worked around his dental surgeries. The show never hid it. And that visibility matters.
Dentists tell me kids these days walk in asking about 'Dustin teeth' instead of hiding their smiles. That awareness works both ways: it normalizes the condition and nudges parents toward earlier orthodontic appointments. For CCD, early intervention means planning around those missing permanent teeth rather than scrambling later. Matarazzo himself went through multiple rounds of oral surgery and years of orthodontic work. He came out the other side with a fully reconstructed bite. This trajectory, from childhood gaps to adult restoration, mirrors what many CCD patients go through.
The ripple effect is real. A 2020 survey of pediatric dentists reported a measurable increase in CCD diagnoses tied directly to Stranger Things viewership. That's not something someone once told me over coffee. It's what the patient data shows.