Invisalign® Treatment
Are you among the thousands of adults who turned down the opportunity to have braces installed as a youth in order to correct the alignment of your teeth? As teenagers, the proposition of braces can be difficult to accept. You may have wanted straighter teeth, but at a fragile developmental point in your life a smile that revealed metal brackets and wires may have been too much to ask if the teeth are otherwise healthy. Now that you’re older, you may be interested in reviewing what it would take to get that perfectly straight smile – and now you have more options.
How Braces Work
In order to understand exactly what Invisalign® can offer you, it can be helpful to understand how braces work. When you have braces installed in the mouth, the brackets on each tooth and its adjoining arch wire begin to exert constant pressure on the teeth. This constant pressure eventually moves your teeth into their ideal placement.
When pressure is exerted on a tooth, the pressure travels down the root of your tooth and signals to your ligament and bone tissue that adjustments need to be made. Your teeth accommodate this by wearing away one side of the bone socket and replacing the bone tissue on the other side of the tooth. That means that your tooth is constantly moving and changing and just when you think the discomfort from this pressure has abated, it will likely be time for another adjustment at the orthodontic clinic to increase pressure on the teeth and move them further. If you have severely crooked teeth, your dentist may advise you that alternatives to metal braces will not produce the results you want. Special conditions may require elastics or other additional measures, which cannot be otherwise achieved.
Invisalign®
Invisalign® treatment uses the same principle to achieve similar results using clear aligners. The aligners are custom made to fit on your teeth just like a sports guard, but these aligners are very thin and their material makes them nearly transparent. That means that when you have your aligners on, it is unlikely that anyone will notice that you’re wearing them. You can go about your life with your aligners in and your confidence intact.
When you order your Invisalign® treatment, you receive all the aligners that you should wear in order throughout the entire treatment. These aligners allow small adjustments to their shape more often, significantly reducing the discomfort required to straighten your teeth. Your aligners will be changed every 2 to 4 weeks at your dentist’s direction at which time you will replace them with the next set in the sequence (we recommend keeping your previous aligners in the event that the ones you are wearing are lost).
Book an Appointment
We will schedule your appointment with Axis Dental Clinic as promptly as possible.
Axis Dental Clinic's Process
Our process to ensure that all of your dental needs are properly met and attended to.
1. Consultations
2. Check Up
3. Treatments
4. Completion
How to Wear Invisalign®
This game-changing system frees patients from much of the burden of traditional braces, but they do require commitment to keep your teeth healthy.
Aligners should be worn a minimum of 22 hours daily, meaning that the only time you remove them is to eat, drink, or for special events like photo shoots. This is important, since teeth really do require constant pressure to keep them moving in the right direction. Why take them out at all? The reason is that your aligners fit so closely over your teeth that if sugars or debris get between the aligners and your teeth, there is nowhere for them to go. The aligners will press the food and debris into your teeth and increase the risk of decay and irritation. Over the course of a full treatment program (12-18 months) the effects to your oral health could be significant.
Eating and drinking hot beverages with your aligners in has the potential to wreck their fit as you bite down on them. And if you don’t have properly fit aligners, you will not achieve the results you want.
Eating with Invisalign®
Invisalign® aligners require that you brush and floss your teeth after eating or drinking anything other than still water, before replacing them again. This may sound like a burden in itself, but there are some advantages to this method of treatment. First, if you are following your dentist’s directions, it is unlikely that you will continue to snack frequently between meals – the need to stop your day to brush and floss multiple times is a great snack-deterrent!
Perhaps the greatest advantage of Invisalign® over traditional braces is the fact that wearing aligners allows you to eat whatever you want! Once the aligners are out, you are free to choose any foods – contrary to metal braces which require a diet free of crunchy foods like carrots and chips, and chewy food like gummies and toffee. Don’t forget to brush!
If you have questions about this or other services offered by our general dentist, contact our clinic today.
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