Braces vs INVISALIGN® Pro and Con

Today I’m going to speak about malocclusion! MALOCCLUSION? That is a mouthful of a word. A mouth FULL; actually that describes malocclusion perfectly.  Remember my last blog on teeth whitening when I described teeth as a fence that gets buffeted by many elements that come at it daily and the white enamel begins to fade? Now; I want you to picture that time when you stepped into a crowded subway or train or bus and you were shoulder to shoulder with other riders and in order to maintain your place in that vehicle you needed to compensate by hunching over a bit or twisting yourself in an almost yoga like position.  No fun! 

Now visualize your thirty-two ‘best friends’ wanting to enter into your mouth but due to inheritance of a small mouth structure there is not enough room for ‘everyone’ in your chew-chew train to ‘stand’ as they were meant to ‘stand.’ (pardon the pun) Complicating matters, perhaps the upper jaw or lower jaw are not same size and thus your teeth cannot align properly which brings about over-bites or under-bites. Other factors that cause teeth to grow in crooked or misaligned can be injury to a tooth or teeth, improperly fitted dental restorations such as fillings or crowns, or excessive thumb sucking or pacifier use as infant.

No matter the cause of why your teeth are not being straight with you, let me be ‘straight’ with you, there are solutions to this difficulty.  The solution is found in orthotic devices called braces!

At Laser Dental Group we can advise you if you need either the traditional wire braces all of you are probably familiar with or a newer type of brace device called INVISALIGN®. What’s the difference you ask? As is the policy of the Laser Dental Group we always evaluate what is best for each of our patients with a full exam of your teeth by way of x-rays and measurements and discussion one on one. I list here three basic benefits that I see for INVISALIGN® vs the traditional brace as well as three basic benefits of the traditional brace over INVISALIGN®. Give us a call at the Laser Dental Group for further discussion to assess what would work best for your needs.  

INVISALIGN® benefits

1.   INVISALIGN® is not seen when it is worn; a cosmetic advantage over traditional braces when in occupations where appearance matters.

     2.   With no wires or brackets with INVISALIGN®; there is little chance of irritation to the mouth, cheek or gums.

     3.   With INVISALIGN® the patient has more control, as the patient has the freedom to remove the plastic aligners from one’s mouth from time to time, an advantage for persons with an active lifestyle.

Benefits of traditional braces

1.   Because of the diminished amount of dental professional control; INVISALIGN® may not be best solution if teeth are rotated more than 20 degrees from their normal position or are tipped more than 45 degrees from normal position, there are tooth spacing of more than 6 mm per arch, or if there are deep overbites, and skeletally based malocclusions.

2.   Depending on condition to correct, INVISALIGN® could be more costly than the traditional wire braces.  

3.   If oral hygiene (brushing and flossing) is not a habitual discipline, as in young children or teens, traditional braces may be the better option.