Most adults, and a good many teens, would rather not have to wear clunky metal braces when they get their teeth straightened. Indeed, for some adults, if all they can have is metal braces, they would rather live with their wonky teeth. Metal braces are, after all, never going to make anyone look more professional and competent.
This is why the orthodontist in Hampshire at Winchester Orthodontics finds so many people are keen to have Invisalign clear aligners.
Invisalign, which often gets misspelled as Invisaline, revolutionised the world of teeth straightening when it first came on the market back in 1997. The brain-child of a student at Stanford University in the USA, Invisalign is basically mouth guards with built-in pressure points. That’s a very simplistic description of Invisalign, but you get the picture. Instead of brackets and wires cemented onto your teeth and tightened every few weeks to pull your teeth into alignment, you get a series of very thin plastic aligners.
You wear the aligners in order, and inside each one is a set of very carefully placed pressure points. The progression in the straightening process comes from switching through the series of aligners, wearing each one for 7-10 days until it starts to feel like it fits really well, and then moving onto the next.
Invisalign offers a variety of treatment packages through the orthodontist in Hampshire, including Invisalign for teens. These have a blue dot on each aligner, which gradually fades over time. When the dot has disappeared, the teen knows it’s time to put in a new aligner.
Removable aligners for easier eating
You take your aligners out to eat and drink anything that isn’t simple water. This stops the aligner from discolouring and also means you can eat whatever you like without worrying about food getting stuck in your device. Then you brush your teeth and put your aligner back in.
As long as you wear your aligner for at least 20 hours a day, you will stay on schedule with your treatment.
At the end of your treatment, you will need to wear a retainer to keep your teeth in place while the new bone made around them hardens.