Clear braces; a survival guide from Spa Dental

Have you recently started wearing Invisalign or a similar type of clear aligner?

If you are like the majority of patients who have, you may need some clarity about how to wear this aligner, to ensure you get the most out of it.

At Spa Dental, we have been offering clear braces Sydney for over a decade and can provide some basic survival tips to our patients who are new to this form of orthodontics.

In this short guide, we discuss some top tips for the daily wear of clear braces Sydney, so enjoy!

Carry the case!

The material that our clear braces Sydney are made from does make them sturdy (after all, they move teeth!), but they are not indestructible.

And for those who are new to wearing aligners, we will generally advise them to keep the carry case provided handy, so you can safely store your aligners when you aren’t wearing them. This will prevent bending, warping and splitting, which can cause the aligner to become unusable and may be expensive to replace.

Keep them in!

When you have a clear aligner, it is so tempting to remove it from your teeth as and when you desire to. And patients are advised to remove aligners when they are eating or drinking anything besides cold water.

But this can be problematic if it is done too often. For invisible aligners like Invisalign to have the best chance of rearranging your teeth, they need to be kept in your mouth for a minimum of 22 hours per day, or as our team recommends.

If you fail to do this, it can lead to your teeth becoming stuck in a position or, in more extreme cases, it can cause your teeth to move back into their previous positions.

So, keep the aligners in and time yourself!

Keep them clean!

A key feature of clear aligners that makes them so appealing is that they are, well, clear!

And the best way to keep them clear, clean and functional is to clean them every day. There are cleaning solutions and crystals available that can facilitate cleaner aligners, but most patients simply rinse them under a cold tap as and when they need to.

You should not rinse your aligners under warm or hot taps, even if there is stubborn staining, as this can cause them to melt and warp, rendering them useless for the rest of the alignment period. Clean aligners also prevent the occurrence of tooth decay and gum disease, as unclean devices can press plaque against the enamel and lead to cavities and fillings.

Keep in touch

There has been an upsurge in many orthodontic businesses offering aligners and braces through the mail. This means that many patients who want to have straighter teeth assume incorrectly that they do not need to contact a dentist to obtain them.

This is not true; any kind of orthodontic treatment should be overseen by a trained dentist or orthodontist, and when you start using Invisalign, you should aim to send weekly selfies to our dentist via the Invisalign app.

Under no circumstance should you miss an aligner without our team giving the thumbs up in advance and you should always aim to see our team for check-ups every 6 to 8 weeks.

DISCLAIMER

All treatment carries risks. Individual consultation is required with one of our practitioners to ensure that the treatment is right for you.