Is Invisalign Better than Braces?

When I was a teenager, believe it or not, one of the more significant rites of passage came with the installation of metal orthodontic braces on your teeth. Prior to having them installed, I endured seeing my older sister sport around in her set, the wearing of which clearly defined her as a teenager, and the fact that I wasn’t (but had spectacularly crooked teeth) rubbed my nose in the fact that I was not.

The day finally came, and I gleefully went down to the orthodontist, suffered through 4 or 5 tooth extractions to make room for the straightening, and got my own bright new set of railroad tracks cemented to my teeth. My happiness began to wane slightly at dinner time when my mother produced a large sheet of paper from the dentist listing all the different favorite foods of mine that I could no longer eat because they posed a destructive threat to my new braces.

I was again a bit less gleeful the next day when I realized that gum, hard candy, toffee, and pretty much any sweet holding value in my heart was disrespectfully stricken from the possibility of consumption for the remaining 1 year, 364.5 days of my incarceration.

The final realization that the wearing of braces truly sucked, came the next morning when I somehow woke up with my pillow inextricably locked to my two front teeth requiring my mother to perform minor surgery with a pair of tweezers and a penknife in the living room in front of my recently orthodontically liberated sister.

But now there are options. You may have heard of Invisalign which is a teeth straightening methodology that uses a series of smooth, removable, virtually invisible plastic trays, or aligners, that are replaced every two weeks or so. Your dentist establishes a plan for the gradual re-positioning of your teeth through the use of these plastic aligners that exert pressure to move your teeth in a prescribed manner.

So, is Invisalign better than braces? Like everything else in life, there are trade-offs and only you are able to determine which solution is better for you.

Is Invisalign Better than Braces?

Pros

• You take them off when you eat so you can eat what you want
• They are transparent so most people won’t know that you have them on
• They won’t harm the soft tissues of your mouth
• Infrequent checkups required
• An accurate estimate for total treatment time can be made (a computer simulation can show you exactly how your teeth will migrate during treatment)

Cons

• May not be appropriate for people with excessively crooked teeth
• Invisalign may be a bit more costly
• Treatment time can be significantly extended if you aren’t wearing aligners consistently
• May impact your speech at first while you become acclimated to wearing the aligners

Again, is Invisalign better than braces? You have to weigh out the pros and cons and decide for yourself, but if I had to do it over again, I would select Invisalign.

We’d love to hear your opinion on this topic, please post your comments below and join in the discussion.

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