Just about anybody can be a candidate for Invisalign if they notice shifting of teeth, you know, crowding, spaces, even wear or tear, unevenness of the teeth, they still can be a candidate for that. Age, Invisalign doesn’t know any age, anybody could be a candidate to do that so long as their foundation is healthy, meaning their gums and bone are strong and can support Invisalign. Invisalign is a real simple procedure and keeps getting better and better and more efficient.
We no longer have to take molds for Invisalign, we can scan the teeth digitally and then those are made off of that. But Invisalign then makes aligners and we kind of go through those about every two to three weeks. We change aligners similar to the way they used to tighten braces with the old metal work and such.
Each aligner is going to move a few teeth at a time and each aligner will move them until we get to the final. And then retainers, because we know today, and this is why a lot of people seek out Invisalign, is that they had braces younger but then they stopped wearing retainers and we know teeth have built-in memory. They’ll keep coming back to where they were and oftentimes even crowd or overlap more so.
So you have to wear retainers at least at night, but they’re worn throughout the day and everything except to eat brush and floss, so we call it the dental diet while you’re in Invisalign. You don’t snack as much because you don’t want to take them out as often, but that’s the most efficient way to go through it. Versus traditional braces, Invisalign advantages are they don’t put as much torque or pressure on the teeth as the metal and wire braces do.
They’re really good at expanding the arch, meaning pushing out the side teeth better than traditional braces, which can help in airways if there’s a sleep issue or snoring, but gives us room then especially if there’s a lot of crowding or overlapping to move those front teeth around more easily and it’s very discreet and you do take it out to eat versus having to collect food and stuff with the traditional braces and trying to get all that removed all the time. Everybody is so unique and individualized that if that’s not checked upon, you know, every few weeks then things can get way off track and you often don’t get the results you need and that’s where a dental supervised approach is so much better than, you know, with those other at-home approaches. You’re taking your own molds, which can have a lot of various distortion or not accurate as they would be scanned or done in the office, but the supervision is really the key part to make sure you really get the results you want and I’ve retreated over the years several cases that came from Smile Direct or some of the other off-brands because they didn’t get where they truly wanted to be at the end.
So Invisalign has a lot of other benefits along the lines of sleep problems or airway obstruction. Invisalign, better than traditional braces, can expand the arch and open up it that way. Another great advantage of Invisalign is function.
So the look part becomes the bonus in most cases I see the aesthetic part, but the function is what’s really key. So if we can move teeth into a neutral straight position, they’re much easier to take care of, much easier to maintain, and they wear more evenly, which increases longevity.
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