Tips for Living with Invisible Braces

Invisible braces are what you dreamed about as a kid. How great it would be to achieve that straight, white smile without enduring the year of two of torture. Kids would have called you metal mouth. You lips and cheeks would have been cut up and sore. You avoided the braces to avoid the teasing and the pain, but now you’ve been offered an alternative. Alignment without metal! Clear plastic retainers that are undetectable! As a bonus, you get to remove them to eat, drink, and brush your teeth.

Here’s the dilemma of the invisible braces wearer. They are invisible, but are they unnoticeable to you, the wearer? Of course not. You hadn’t counted on all the ways they would affect your life.

Problems often reported by Invisible Braces Wearers:

• Dry mouth – Many wearers report that they need to drink a lot more water while wearing the retainers.
• Throat soreness and an irritated tongue – The plastic on the teeth is easier for some people to adjust to that others. Most wearers report that the initial feeling of developing a sore throat goes away after a few weeks. Tongue irritation, as well, seems to subside as the wearer adjusts to the retainer.
• Excess saliva – The mouth tends to respond to foreign objects with saliva production. This is natural and will subside as you grow accustomed to wearing the retainers.
• Slurring when speaking or a lisp – It may be difficult to speak clearly, at first. As you grow accustomed to wearing the retainers, this problem with correct itself.
• Bad breathe – The process of cleaning your aligners, as well as maintaining excellent care of your teeth through the adjustment process is crucial. Aligners can and should be cleaned before reinserting them after every meal. Special cleaners are available for soaking your aligners and for stain removal.
• Extreme pressure in the mouth that drives you to distraction – It is very common for wearers to find the retainers highly distracting in the first few days. This, too, shall pass.

So are they worth it?

In spite of these standard complaints, those undergoing treatment by invisible braces options are typically convinced that process is worth it by the third week of treatment. Most report that after the initial week or two of discomfort, the biggest problems went away. People are able to adjust to the retainers so successfully and start noticing results so quickly that it is a rare to impossible to find case where an invisible brace wearer longs to have gone the traditional route.

The answer for initial discomfort – persevere.

The key, of course, it to find ways to ride out the first days of retainer wearing and adjustment. Because aligners can be removed for eating, drinking, and cleaning, it will be very tempting to pull them out and give yourself a rest from the irritation. AVOID this temptation. What wearers find is that removing the retainers simply prolongs the agony of adjustment. Your dentist may recommend, in fact, that you extend a two-week retainer for a third week if movement of the teeth has not progressed enough. By lightening up on your dedication you may, in fact, be prolonging your sentence.

Strategies for Adjusting to Invisible Braces

• Plan your initiation to invisible braces with a few days off. It might be helpful to take a long weekend when you first get your invisible braces. This will allow you the luxury of adjusting without having to face your peers at work and embarrass yourself with odd speech patterns and unseemly grimaces.
• General over-the-counter pain relief tablets are often helpful in getting through the early days with a retainer.
• Drink lots of water. Carry bottled water with you to alleviate problems with dry mouth. This also will help avoid mouth sores and discomfort by keeping your mouth lubricated.
• Carry a dental kit everywhere you go. You will need a safe place to store your retainer at meals and all the tools necessary for cleaning and reinserting the device after meals. Small bottles of mouthwash are handy for quick rinses to avoid mouth odor when you are on the run.

Of primary importance – WEAR the device!

It is easy to get into the habit of removing the adjustment appliance for the sake of convenience. Develop good habits early on by being a dedicated wearer. Determine ahead of time that you will get through those early days of adjustment and complete your treatment in as timely a manner as possible. Invisible braces only work if you wear them consistently. The benefits over traditional braces are endless, but you have to make them yours.

Talk to your dentist today about options for straightening your teeth. It’s never too late to have an attractive smile.