What is Invisalign?

Woman wearing clear teeth aligners

If you are looking for a dental treatment to help straighten your teeth, but don’t want to have constant dental appointments or metal braces, then Invisalign in Welwyn could be for you. It involves you being given multiple aligners which are made out of a soft, clear plastic material. Each of the aligners will be different to gradually straighten your teeth over time. The average treatment time is usually between 6-18 months, but it all comes down to your individual needs.

What’s the process?

Firstly, as with any dental treatment that is given, you will have a consultation appointment with your dentist. This is vital in ensuring that you get all of the information you need to go forward, and to allow your dentist to take scans. The scans taken in this appointment are important so that your dentist can have a better look at your teeth and jaw, and then they can be sent off to a dental laboratory so that your aligners can be custom-made. By using X-rays to influence the shape of your aligners, it means that they fit perfectly around your teeth, increasing both effectiveness and comfort.

After your consultation appointment, you will then wait a couple of weeks for your custom-made aligners to be created. And once you receive them, your teeth straightening  journey can truly begin! The aligners are removable, meaning that you can change between the different appliances easily and from the comfort of your own home. It is recommended to wear your aligners for around 20 hours a day, which may sound like a lot, but due to the added comfort from the thin plastic material, it won’t be a massive inconvenience. When you are going through the treatment, you will only have to visit your dentist every 6-8 weeks for a quick check-up to make sure everything is going as planned.

Once you have completed the treatment, you will be advised to wear a retainer to make sure that your teeth don’t retract to their original positioning. This is typical with any treatment that involves teeth alignment , as sometimes your teeth will try and move back to where they were before. This is why it is important to wear a retainer for a certain amount of time afterwards to ensure that this doesn’t happen.

What are the advantages?

There are so many great advantages to this treatment that you can enjoy, whether it is for health reasons or appearance.

The most common benefit that people enjoy about this treatment is how the aligners look when you have them in. As mentioned above, the material used is a soft, clear, thin plastic that fits snugly around your teeth, meaning that anyone else won’t even be able to see that you have them in.

Another advantage of this treatment is the ease of the whole process. It does not involve any invasive mould taking, and you can administer it from your own home by changing each aligner when due to. This is great if you are someone who feels more nervous about coming to the dentist, as you will only have to go to your dental practice for scans and a few quick check-ups.

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