| On this page: Aligner difficulties: pressure. speech. Invisalign ® check-up appointments. How do you clean invisible braces? |
Most clear braces patients will experience few problems with wearing their aligners. It is possible, however, that some of the issues we describe on this page may need to be addressed.
It is possible that some patients will complain of experiencing a mild level of pain when they wear their invisible braces. Typically this discomfort is described as a sense of "pressure." In most cases it is only experienced during those first few days when the patient initiates wearing a new aligner.
A patient needs to understand that this symptom is evidence that the pressure needed to straighten their teeth is in fact being generated. The pressure that they feel is due to the fit of the aligner against the teeth that it was designed to move. As days go by, as the patient's teeth do shift, this sense of pressure will become less and less.
Along these same lines, some patient's will be concerned that they only feel the pressure of their invisible braces against certain teeth or only in some areas. This sensation is quite possibly accurate and is probably by design. Invisalign ® treatment plans typically involve moving only selected teeth, or groupings of teeth, at certain times. Specific teeth are often moved with some initial aligners so to create space into which, later on, other teeth can be moved using following aligners.
To quantify the difficulties that a patient might encounter during clear braces treatment, one study (Nedwed, 2005) monitored a group of Invisalign ® patients and evaluated their experiences during their initial three to six months of treatment. During this time frame, 35% of the patients found they had no real discomfort with wearing their aligners whereas 54% did experience mild pain. This pain was typically associated with the initial use of a new aligner. In most cases this discomfort subsided within 2 to 3 days. Overall, 83% of the study's participants reported that they got used to wearing aligners within a week's time. 6% of the participants experienced significant gum tissue irritation (scratched or irritated gums, lips or cheeks).
Wearing invisible braces does have the potential to interfere with a person's normal speech patterns. However, the Nedwed (2005) study mentioned above reported that 46% of Invisalign ® patients had no such difficulty. In those cases where a problem was noticed, the person typically adapted to their aligners and their speech difficulties resolved to normal within a short period of time, usually no longer than just a few days. The Nedwed study found that 93% of its participants felt secure enough with their aligners that they had no inhibitions about speaking when wearing them.
For most patients, inserting and removing their clear braces will be a simple process. It is important, however, that the treating dentist or a member of their staff goes over aligner insertion and removal with their patient so they know what to do and expect.
People can find that removing their invisible braces is a challenge, sometimes surprisingly so. With the new patient this difficulty might present itself simply because they are too timid with their efforts due to the fact that they have so little experience with their aligners. Another factor that can come into play is that the needed "misfit" of the aligner in relationship to the patient's current tooth arrangement can cause a new aligner to be relatively snug. With time however, as the alignment of the teeth is guided and changed by the aligner, its fit should become more relaxed.
During their Invisalign ® treatment, a patient is typically scheduled with their dentist or orthodontist for evaluation appointments every four to six weeks. This gives them a chance to check their patient's progress and make sure that their treatment is progressing as planned.
In most cases these appointments will be fairly short, often just involving visual observation and making progress notes. Since Invisalign ® aligners are typically only worn for about two weeks, yet check-up appointments are usually scheduled at four to six week intervals, the dentist will need to dispense additional sets of aligners to the patient at each evaluation visit.
At times the check-up appointment may include the dentist performing a minor dental procedure. There are certain tooth movements that are relatively difficult for removable orthodontic aligners to produce. Because of this Invisalign ® aligners often need a bump of white filling material bonded onto the surface of specific teeth so to improve the way they can guide the tooth's movement.
In other cases the dentist may need to "strip" the patient's teeth. In this context "stripping teeth" means to narrow them slightly. Crowded teeth are often stripped so space is gained into which the teeth can be realigned. The dentist may perform this stripping with their dental drill or else a diamond-coated strip. Neither method necessitates the use of a dental anesthetic.
Clear braces aligners need no special cleaning treatment. Dental plaque will accumulate on the aligners just as it does on teeth. Brushing the aligners with a toothbrush or other small brush can remove this plaque.
If an aligner has begun to stain, a simple remedy can be to soak it in water to which a small amount of bleach (Clorox ®) has been added. One cause of aligner staining can be smoking. For this reason, Align Technology, Inc. suggests that Invisalign ® aligners should be removed when a person smokes.
Even though each set of invisible braces aligners is typically intended to be worn for just two weeks, no one should throw any aligner away without getting permission from their dentist first. There can be times when the progress of a patient's treatment begins to deviate from the expected. In these cases, a dentist might ask their patient to stop wearing their current set of aligners and back their treatment up a few steps by re-wearing some previous sets.
Topic Index for :
Clear braces systems.
Send this page to a friend.
Bookmark / social bookmark this page.
