My Invisalign Blog

My Invisalign Braces Experience

How They Remove Invisalign Attachments Or Buttons…

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This week was another milestone in my treatment as it was time to remove my Invisalign attachments or buttons. I have now reached 30/34 on my first run of lower Invisalign braces (only 4 more to go!) and set 9/9 of my first run of Invisalign refinements on my upper arch- in other words, the first run of my upper refinements are now finished! To mark this momentous occasion I had a long appointment with my orthodontist to evaluate how my upper teeth are now looking, and also, joy of joy, to remove my upper Invisalign attachments.

For those of you as yet unfamiliar with all the details of Invisalign, attachments are small tooth coloured blobs of material that are glued or cemented onto teeth during Invisalign treatment. Their purpose is to provide additional “grip” for the aligners so that more difficult or complex tooth movements are possible. They can be used on any number of teeth, depending on the preferences of your Invisalign provider and what movements the teeth need to make. Some lucky people have none, some have a large number, I have 5. You can see some of mine in the picture below:

how to remove invisalign attachments

My orthodontist decides to Remove Invisalign Attachments

Throughout my treatment, whilst I haven’t enjoyed having attachments exactly, I have easily tolerated them to the point that not only didn’t I feel them in my mouth any more, I didn’t see them when I looked in the mirror either. So I was fairly relaxed about having them removed- I was happy to do it, but I wasn’t yearning for it exactly. In fact, given that they have been solidly attached to my teeth for the last 15 months and have endured all manner of brushing, tugging and scraping and still stayed resolutely attached, I was afraid that getting them off might be a minor ordeal.

So it was with a certain amount of trepidation that let I let my orthodontist lower me back in his dentist’s chair, one hand adjusting his medical face mask, the other brandishing a large, sinister looking dentist’s drill. My fear wasn’t allayed by him telling me, with only a little relish in his voice, that this was going to be noisy.

I don’t know whether you have ever had any fillings, but my teeth are riddled with them. So I am pretty familiar with the feeling of the dentist’s drill and the vibrations that go through your head as they buzz and scrape noisily through your teeth. This was what I was expecting with the removal of my attachments.

I am relieved and excited to report however, that it is really not that bad. Yes, there is a little of the same sensation of vibration as the attachment is drilled, but because it is on the outside of your tooth and the drill is not contacting with any of your tooth’s own structure, the vibrations do not travel through your head in the same way. Also, the removal of each attachment seemed to take no more that 15-20 seconds of drilling, compared to the 30 minutes to an hour that I have endured with some of my larger fillings, so although there was some vibration it had barely started before it finished. After the initial drilling was completed, my orthodontist switched to a smaller polisher and ran it across the tooth’s surface where the attachment had been, just to remove any last traces of the cement- and it was finished! The whole process of removing my attachments was over in less than five minutes start to finish.

As my orthodontist adjusted my chair back into the upright position and told me to rinse my mouth I was so surprised that it was over that I told him “well THAT was remarkably painless” to which he looked at me bemused, and replied “Well what did you expect?”
I didn’t really like to run him through the scenarios that had been coursing through my head prior to my appointment – if you google remove Invisalign attachments very little shows up, so I had filled in the details myself.

The attachments removed and my teeth in all their naked glory we were able to get onto the important business of discussing how my teeth look. Removing the attachments has altered the way they appear (see pics below) but hasn’t changed how I feel about what needs to be done. I told him all of my concerns (explained with pictures in my previous post about set 29 before and after pictures) about how the front tooth needed to rotate a little more and how I think the molars have been thrown into shadow.

He listened patiently, had a very thorough examination of my teeth from every angle, and then told me that he could see what I was talking about, that he agreed that my arch could be widened a little more by moving out my molars, and that we could look at it in the next refinement. He did caution that as my teeth have already moved so much that there was a limit to what could be done whilst still keeping my teeth in the jaw bone, but that he would do his best. One of the things (other than experience) that I think is so important to look for in an orthodontist is their willingness to listen to your opinion. I think I have been very, very fortunate with mine that not only is he willing to listen, he will happily rethink his approach if you tell him that you would prefer to do it another way.

how to remove invisalign attachments

Close Up No Attachments

Within my Invisalign contract I have the original run of aligners included, plus three runs of refinements. I have used one refinement correcting my upper arch whilst the bottoms were still completing their first run, so my orthodontist and I agreed that we would wait until I have finished my lower arch first run of aligners before we start the next set of refinements. That means that both arches can be tackled simultaneously in the same series of refinements. In the meantime, over the next eight weeks I will be wearing my upper aligner only at night whilst wearing the lower one for the usual 22 (ahem) hours a day for the next 10 weeks. According to my orthodontist this is the best compromise between keeping the upper aligner intact and still wearable whilst not letting my teeth relapse too much until the next series of aligners. All in all I am thrilled with how my teeth are now looking and excited to get them finished off. Roll on 10 weeks time.

Look no upper attachments- shame about the molars in shadow and the ugly crown at the front that needs replacing though…

One Year In Invisalign Braces – Not There Yet!

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It occurred to me yesterday that it is almost exactly a year since I started wearing Invisalign and whilst I won’t be throwing the little plastic fellas a birthday party exactly, I thought it might be useful to reflect on how well the year has gone.

One year in Invisalign braces - image of fireworks.

One Year In Invisalign!

Firstly, have my teeth changed? Hell yes. When I look at that horrendous before picture in my right sidebar I’m not surprised that I never showed my teeth when I smiled. I’m actually just surprised that I left the house at all!
Not that I have perfect teeth now, in fact, I still have probably as long to go again, if not longer. But I’m happy with that because I can see that things are moving in the right direction.
So to reflect on the good things to have come out of this whole process:

  • My teeth look much, much better already. The thing that has made a particular difference in my opinion has been the widening of my upper arch. I knew that it needed to be done, I just didn’t know what a difference it would make.
  • The tooth whitening. This made an enormous visual change to my smile and I plan to do some more when I am finished and all of my attachments are off. It was also a great boost at the start of the treatment. I can highly recommend the nitewhite that I used with my trays.
  • My orthodontist is great, which is a huge relief. It was such a process to find a good orthodontist that I’m thrilled that it worked out so well.
  • Wearing my Invisalign isn’t painful in any way. Of course, there is some pressure and tenderness at the beginning of some trays but there is no rubbing and chafing, no sores, nothing. I expected this to be much worse than it is. I’m not sure what I expected exactly, but I think it involved ulcers, sores, waxes and many other horrors that I haven’t had to deal with.
  • My oral hygiene has dramatically improved. I feel guilty now if I only floss three times a day. I hope this carries on after treatment at least to some extent. It’s also gratifying to actually be able to get the floss between my teeth, it used to be an exercise in physical force just to get the stuff between my teeth and out again without it breaking. These days I don’t even think about it.
  • I just haven’t found wearing the things an ordeal. They aren’t that noticeable, they aren’t that inconvenient, they just aren’t very difficult. Such minor inconvenience for such a great result seems a pretty happy balance to me.

Of course, not every aspect of Invisalign wearing is rosy … off the top of my head these are the things that I don’t like about my braces:

  • I’m not as compliant in wearing my Invisalign I should be. I know that is my fault and not the fault of Invisalign but it still annoys me. Mainly it is just laziness and forgetfulness, less than admirable traits.  Still, it gives me something to add to my list of New Year’s Resolutions.
  • I forgot to get my attachments removed before my upper refinements and then I forgot to ask my orthodontist why we didn’t remove them. Of course, there may well be a sound orthodontic reason for it, but I don’t know it so it annoys me!
  • I keep losing the damn things. I’m sure if you’re a regular reader your pretty au fait with my inability to hold onto my Invisalign aligners, but honestly, in the next year I don’t want to go scrabbling through any more restaurant dustbins. Yes, it happened again last week. No, it wasn’t pretty.

On reflection, there isn’t really anything that I would change about my Invisalign decision. Of course, I am yet to see the end result and that might change my feelings, but at what I assume to be about the halfway point I am thrilled with how things are going.

On a final note I just wanted to say thank you to the 65,000 of you (yes really) that have read this blog over the last year. Your comments, helpful suggestions and support have been much appreciated.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Keep smiling…

Set 4 Of Invisalign Braces

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“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change. ” Charles Darwin

Well, Darwin would be proud of me this week. Not only have I managed to get used to my new Invisalign attachments, I have almost forgotten they are there. Which isn’t to say that I like them, of course, rather that I am learning to live with them in all their visible glory.

Invisalign braces

It’s getting easier to eat out with my Invisalign

Set 3 were diabolical to remove, but now, three weeks into my life with attachments my Invisalign aligners are almost as easy to remove as they were before the dreaded buttons were put on. I can whip them out fairly quickly, and regularly do it surreptitiously in public eating places all over Brisbane. Nobody seems to notice, or perhaps they are just too polite to stare, in which case I am eternally grateful to them. I have still have the problem of my attachments catching occasionally on the side of my cheeks when the aligners are out of my mouth, but even that problem is diminishing as my cheeks toughen up.
Set 4 were tight at first, particularly on my front teeth which were tender for the first 24-36 hours, but not so tender that I couldn’t eat. It was the kind of tender that I have actually come to almost enjoy as I know that it means that my teeth are moving towards their new improved positions! I had some trouble with a sharp edge in place that had never rubbed before, but 24 hours and some sly manoeuvres with a nail file sorted out that problem.

I find now, and yes, it is somewhat pathetic, that I get a little bit excited as changeover day approaches. In the second week of wearing an aligner I get that feeling you have in a job when you have already given your notice. You are just marking time and going through the motions, mentally you have already moved on. I can now understand why people try to speed up their Invisalign treatment time by cutting the time of wearing each aligner to 10 days. It is tempting. You know what though? After $6300 dollars, and all that it has taken to get here, it is not that tempting.

Bring on aligner no. 5….

Set 3 Invisalign braces-Invisalign attachments!

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Having just got my new Invisalign attachments (or Invisalign buttons as some people prefer to call them) I think my love affair with Invisalign braces may already be starting to wane.

I’m not sure what possessed me, but I scheduled my appointment to get my Invisalign attachments an hour after I was due to drop my 5 year old daughter off for her first ever day at school. By the time I had realised, it was too late to reschedule, unless I wanted to wait another 2 weeks for my next set, which I certainly didn’t.

So, I arrived at my appointment red eyed and sorry for myself after a morning of blubbing and was perhaps feeling a little more fragile than I might otherwise have been. You should probably bear that in mind when reading this account!

My teeth though, were in great shape. I had a quick chat with the ortho about the bleaching which we agreed had been reasonably successful. I mentioned that after 3 consecutive nights of use it had made my gums crack and bleed, which he said noone else had told him before, so maybe that is just me?

He had a quick look at tray 2 in my mouth, and examined the crack (read about that here). He could immediately see the problem, and upon examining the other aligners he had waiting for me we could see that some of them cover my stray lower tooth completely, and some just cover the top of it. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to give me any explanation other than the that the Invisalign robot was having an off day but he decided it was unnecessary to cover that tooth, and took all the future sets away and filed them down. There was also a small area that irritates part of my gum that I have had to file on my last two sets, and he filed that on all the future sets too which was a great relief.

By the time I got to this appointment, 4 weeks into my Invisalign treatment I could get my trays in and out almost without thinking about it. It wasn’t quite at the point where I could pop them out with my tongue as I have read some other people discuss, but it was certainly easy. I told my ortho this, and he chuckled and said “wait until we get these attachments on” with an evil glint in his eye, and what I thought might be a cackle under his breath…

attachments

Teeth With Invisalign Attachments (Invisalign buttons)

The Invisalign attachments or buttons are small clear ‘blobs” that are fixed to your teeth to give your aligners better grip on the tooth that they are attached to. They are, in my case, all oblong shaped, although apparently there are other possible shapes. Depending on the movement they are designed to help with, they can be put on either vertically or horizontally, and can go on different positions on each tooth to help create different movements. I have 5 attachments in total as you can see on my clincheck.

The process of putting them on began with my ortho showing me 2 sets of my third aligner. One of them was a template set, made of a much finer and softer plastic than the normal aligners, the other was the standard aligner for use after the attachments were fixed. The template aligner was fitted to my teeth to check for fit and was then removed again. The ortho then used some kind of powered drill to ‘rough up’ the surface of my tooth. It was a sensation not unlike sandpapering and not altogether pleasant. He then filled the attachment gaps in the template with some gel and reinserted it on to my teeth. The gel would be what ultimately would form the attachments, and was hardened by him shining a blue light on each one in turn in a way very similar to when you get a white filling.

The next bit was slightly fiddly as he then had to remove the template, which involved lots of pulling and the use of his dentists pick, but eventually it came out without the attachments or any of my teeth!

He then took what sounded like a drill and filed off any excess bits that had become attached to my teeth, and also smoothed around the attachments so that they would not irritate my mouth. This was the part that I REALLY didn’t enjoy. It was very similar to having your tooth drilled in preparation for a filling, and although I knew that they weren’t actually drilling into my tooth, it felt as if they were, and was almost bordering on painful. The only positive was that it was over relatively quickly. If you have a dentist or filling phobia it may be worthwhile having a stiff drink or a valium for this bit, it is the bit I have enjoyed least of the whole process thus far.

I was then ready to go! The orthodontist reinserted the softer template tray and told me to wear that one until the end of the day. His reasoning for this was that it can be extremely difficult to remove the trays the first day after attachments are put on. The template would therefore help to move the teeth a bit whilst still being flexible enough to allow it to be more easily removed. This would give me a chance to practice before inserting the normal one that evening. I’m not sure whether this is standard procedure from Invisalign, if not, all hail my ortho, as it seemed like a great idea!

Of course, when he said that the template would be easier to remove than the normal tray, he meant easier, not easy. It still took me about ten nail-breaking minutes to remove each aligner, and I began to seriously doubt whether I would actually ever be able eat again.

There is a moment when you reach a certain point of frustration trying to remove these things, when your fingers seem too big and clumsy to fit in your mouth, and you just want to scream. I spent most of the day like that with one of the aligners stuck half on and half off my teeth and my fingers down my throat. I was so panicky that I wondered whether I can do this or whether I will need an aligner hook. Apparently a lot of Invisalign patients swear by them although they are hard to get hold of in Australia.

I switched to the standard aligners that evening, and noticed two things. Firstly, that the Invisalign buttons make them WAY firmer- they certainly do increase the grip- and also that my ortho wasn’t kidding about how much more difficult they are to remove. Even a week on I am still struggling- not as much, but there is no sense of just ‘popping’ them in and out, it really is something of an ordeal. They are also so much tighter than set two, almost to the point of pain. The old cliche of be careful what you wish for certainly applies in this case.

Aesthetically, I am also not a great fan of Invisalign buttons. I was prepared to concede that Invisalign braces are fairly invisible when you don’t have attachments, but, I think the Invisalign attachments effectively double their visibility. The strange bumps on your teeth are way more noticeable than the extra glossiness that you get from the aligner. Of course, that being said, they are still a substantial improvement on even clear standard braces, just not truly invisible.

The only other thing I dislike is that when your aligners are out of your mouth the Invisalign attachments feel very rough inside your cheeks- it gives you sympathy for how people with standard braces must struggle. They also feel like food becomes easily caught on them.

Of course, having said all this, I still on balance feel that they will be worth it- if I do end up with great teeth at the end!

For those of you who might be interested there is a great video on youtube showing the attachment process. I think it was helpful to me to know what to expect.

I’ll let you be the judge of how visible my Invisalign attachments look:

Invisalign attachments with aligner in

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Tooth Whitening With Invisalign Aligners

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Just thought I would write a quick post about teeth bleaching or whitening with Invisalign because I get a lot of queries about Invisalign whitening and how to whiten your teeth with Invisalign. You probably can’t tell from my previous photos, because, in truthfulness, I am embarrassed and only pick the best pictures, but my teeth are really quite yellow.

Fortunately one of the great things about Invisalign is that you can use your aligner trays to bleach your teeth. Unfortunately, you have to do it before you get your buttons (attachments) on- so in my case (and I’m not sure if that is standard) within the first four weeks. For those of you who haven’t heard of attachments yet, stick around, because I’m sure you’ll be hearing me moan about them in the near future! In short, they are small blobs of a tooth coloured substance attached to your teeth to help give the Invisalign aligners more grip.

Invisalign whitening

The product I used for tooth whitening with Invisalign- US readers click image to buy on Amazon

For the first week I was still too consumed by the newness of it all to get around to bleaching, but last night I thought I would give it a shot. I can’t bleach my crown, but it is being replaced at the end of the process, so I have decided on balance to bleach anyway and just deal with having a mismatched crown for now. Let’s be honest, my teeth are pretty dire anyway, one slightly mismatched tooth will barely make a difference.
The system my dentist has given me is a home bleaching kit called nitewhite, that has 22% peroxide. (Note- if you live in the UK you can’t buy this there because it’s stronger than is allowed- you can order it from Amazon here though with shipping to the UK). For tooth whitening with Invisalign you use your invisalign aligners as the bleaching tray and stick one spot of bleach into each tooth space. My orthodontist charged me $40 for the bleaching, which seems fairly reasonable to me, particularly when compared to the cost of the zoom whitening system that my dentist suggested.

I merrily filled my aligners with the bleaching gel last night, taking care to put only as much liquid as suggested into each one. Nonetheless when I put them in the gel squirted out the edge of the aligners onto my gums. I spent 10 minutes or so mopping up the excess with a cotton bud.
They actually made my aligners feel tighter again, more like the second day of wear, so perhaps it is advisable to do this only on the second week of each set, I imagine that in the first few days it might make them more uncomfortable.
This morning, I jumped out of bed and inspected, and my teeth are definitely whiter. Probably by 2 or 3 shades at least. However, one of my bottom teeth, (and of course, one of the ones at the front) has an area that is significantly whiter than the rest. Really a kind of Hollywood “gleam”. It looks like I have dropped a spot of liquid paper onto my tooth, but vigorous brushing has shown me that it is not going to change. Strangely it also appears more opaque than the surrounding tooth. Really, I have no idea how this happened or what I am supposed to do about it. I think in the meantime I’ll just keep going, bleaching each night and hoping that they match up, and then ask my orthodontist about it at the next appointment.
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I am writing this second element of this post another day on, after a second night of tooth whitening with Invisalign. Nothing new has happened with the odd white spot, but the rest of my teeth are looking MUCH whiter. In fact, there is something strangely addictive about this whole whitening thing. I hope I can temper my enthusiasm so I don’t end up with one of those crazy over-bleached smiles…of course, I would then have to get a serious orange suntan to match to get the full Eurotrash look going on- and with my pale aspirin English Rose complexion that is never going to happen.. but if I start posting pictures of an over-tanned, over-bleached me, feel free to let me know via the comments form! I am supposed to keep going for several more nights, but I may have a break for a bit as I noticed that my gums are sensitive and prone to bleeding the morning after the bleaching.
Still, my husband, who has always been fervently against me changing pretty much any aspect of my appearance has admitted that my teeth look much better whiter. I actually think it makes me look younger, or maybe I’m just flattering myself! Lord knows, it wouldn’t be the first time.
It seems to me that this might actually be a good thing to do at the beginning of the Invisalign process as a motivational tool. It can be quite trying getting used to wearing the aligners, and this bleaching has acted as a little boost, a metaphorical pep talk, in helping me imagine how great my teeth might look once they are finished.
The only problem is that once you start scrutinising your teeth so intently, as Invisalign has a way of making you do, you find more and more faults. I have never liked my teeth, but I never thought they were that bad. Now, I can tell you what I dislike about the shape, position and angle of each one. I seem to remember writing at the beginning of all this that I was looking for nice teeth, not perfect teeth. I think, maybe, I just need to get out more..

Tooth Whitening With Invisalign

Tooth Whitening With Invisalign

Here is a picture of the offending tooth with its white spot, (bottom centre) and I didn’t even have to enhance this picture to make them look whiter. Yay! You can see in the picture just how mismatched that ugly old crown on the top row now looks, but my teeth matched it perfectly before, so maybe it’s a good thing that it no longer matches!!

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A quick PS a week later. I have found that after about 3 consecutive nights of whitening with Invisalign my gums get sore and cracked. I think it is best to bleach 2 nights, followed by 2 nights bleach free and repeat as necessary- please let me know whether you have a better method

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This is the product that I used for tooth whitening with Invisalign. I purchased it through my orthodontist but it is also available here through Amazon a lot cheaper!

For people who don’t yet have Invisalign trays there are also kits that come with a tray for you to use so you get the same bleaching effect without needing Invisalign.