My Invisalign Blog

My Invisalign Braces Experience

Invisalign Dentist Or Orthodontist? Which Is The Best Invisalign Provider?

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One of the topics that I get more questions about than any other on this blog is finding an Invisalign dentist or orthodontist. My own search for an Invisalign dentist or orthodontist took visits to several providers before I was able to find someone that I liked that was willing and able to treat me.

How To Remove Invisalign Image of Invisalign dentist or orthodontist

Invisalign dentist or orthodontist. Does it matter?

One of the things that surprises me the most when I am asked this is that many people don’t understand the difference between a dentist and an orthodontist. The easiest way to explain it is to compare it to doctors. A dentist is the equivalent of a GP. They do general dentistry; sometimes this includes some orthodontics. In many countries they aren’t allowed to call themselves orthodontists but get around this by using the word “orthodontics” or similar in their advertising. By comparison an orthodontist is like a specialist doctor such as a cardiologist, except that they specialise in the movement of teeth. In most countries orthodontists have done substantial additional study at university (often several years) and generally do nothing but orthodontic work in their practices.

invisalign inInvisalign is available through both dentists and orthodontists. Rather than having substantial orthodontic training, Invisalign providers are required to do an Invisalign course before they can offer Invisalign. It had never occurred to me to wonder exactly how extensive or otherwise this Invisalign training was.

Recently however, I was having a quick google to find some piece of Invisalign information or another and came across the following post from a dentist who is no longer offering Invisalign. To be honest, it terrified me.

As an avid reader of Invisalign forums I had known that Align (the makers of Invisalign) had been tightening up their systems to ensure that only more experienced providers of Invisalign kept offering it, but frankly what I read on the dentists blog terrified me.

For instance her assertion that she took a two day course to qualify in Invisalign and that:

“I graduated Temple dental in 2001 with little clue how to successfully and orthodontically move a tooth. Like most clinicians, I  learned little about orthodontics in dental school. Sure I bent some wires, took a gazillion alginates, uprighted some molars, and occasionally made an active or passive appliance. Requirements, however, were minimal and Ortho at Temple was always the ‘easy A.’”

must surely be a worry for people that are considering Invisalign through a general dentist.

Similarly I don’t know whether there is any truth in her statement:

“Invisalign approved nearly any case you sent. Even with unpredictable movements like extrusions, intrusions, rotations and difficult cases like open bites and cross-bites, Invisalign provided a successful clincheck. This of course was nonsense and after a few poor results, I quickly learned Invisalign’s limitations.”

but it certainly makes me glad that Align are tightening their policies. (incidentally, I wonder whether this blanket approval theory is still true; my orthodontist who is VERY experienced tells me that he gets cases refused regularly that he thinks he could treat)

All in all I think anyone who is interested in Invisalign should read this dentists post to make sure that they ask the right questions before choosing their provider.

As someone with a very complex case my preference for me is an orthodontist to do my treatment. However, I know that many, many people have had dentists do their Invisalign and they have done a fantastic job. The key to it seems to be that you absolutely have to ensure that your provider has experience of using Invisalign and lots of it and you should keep this foremost in your mind when choosing an Invisaling dentist or orthodontist. Fortunately, the Invisalign website ranks providers according to the number of cases they have undertaken recently. Still, it never hurts to ask the question yourself. I saw one provider who had not finished a single Invisalign case but was happy to take on my very complex issue. I would also point out that I think it is important to ask not only how many cases have been treated but also whether any cases similar to yours have been completed and how successful the results were. Ask to see before and after pictures where possible as these will tell you whether you would have been happy with the treatment.

Also, I think when deciding who to go with that it’s important to not just base your decision on what Invisalign costs from each provider. Certainly, if you have a very straightforward simple orthodontic issue you will probably find that you get a great result whoever does your treatment. If however, you have anything more complex you really need to consider who will be the best person to treat you. I know that many patients ring around hoping to get the best price- who doesn’t want to pay as little as possible? In more complex cases though, I think it is also vital that you take into account whether the cheapest provider is actually the best one for you in experience terms. Of course, that isn’t to say that more expensive means more experience- I often found the reverse to be true. Rather I just mean that experience should be just as, if not more, important than price in complex cases.

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…

Chatting to My Invisalign Orthodontist: Vivera Retainers and Refinements

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I don’t know about you, but I’m one of these people that always comes away from appointments with doctors/dentists/orthodontists with a list of questions that I forgot to ask. My last few appointments with my orthodontist have been like that. I intend to write a list of questions beforehand, I procrastinate, I mean to get around to it, and then, in the end, I leave it too late and forget everything I want to ask.

This time however, wasn’t like that. For the first time I managed to actually remember all the things I wanted to talk about, coming away with a lot of good new information.

The first thing we discussed was refinements. I have 17 Upper and 34 Lower aligners on my first run of Invisalign (yes, there will be more!) and I was expecting that I might have to wait until all my lowers were finished before I could start the refinements on the top arch. I was relieved then, to be told that we actually get three attempts at refinement with my orthodontist, so I can start on the tops whilst the lowers are still going. Of course, it’s impossible to know whether I’ll actually need refinements at this stage, but knowing that it won’t impact on the overall timeframe of the treatment means that I may be more of a perfectionist on my top arch than I might otherwise have been. I’m not sure why but I had somewhere along the line convinced myself that there was only one refinement possible, so this was a great relief for me- with a case as complex as mine I have a feeling that we will need a few tweaks here and there.

Invisalign dentist

My Orthodontist _ Dr Brett Kerr

Secondly, although I have written about my orthodontist a fair amount on this blog, I’ve never before named him as I felt that it wasn’t appropriate without his permission. I do get quite a few emails asking for his details, so I was keen to get them on here if possible. Anyway, another of things that I remembered to ask was his permission to give his name, and it was duly granted. So, if anybody is looking for an orthodontist in Brisbane, Australia, I’m happy to highly recommend Dr. Brett Kerr. His website is here with all his contact details and examples of past cases. (update: I think he’s now retired sadly!)

I did also tell him about my blog, which he said he’s going to read- I guess I’ll know whether he liked it next time I visit. If I suddenly need an unscheduled and highly painful round of extensive IPR (filing between my teeth) We’ll know that he wasn’t happy with what I’ve written!!

The other thing we talked at length about was the Vivera retainers that Invisalign offers. For those of you that haven’t heard of them, Invisalign offer a system whereby you receive a new retainer by mail every three months. Previously, some patients had reported that when they had bought two retainers, worn one for 6 months and then switched to the second, their teeth had moved making inserting the second one difficult. In other words, the retainer itself had altered slightly, allowing their teeth to slightly relapse. To prevent this happening the Vivera system was introduced. My ortho told me that he thinks that the system is a great idea, but unfortunately isn’t available in Australia yet. Hopefully, that’s something that might change in the future. Incidentally to those of you in the US it costs in the region of $300 p.a. depending on the orthodontist.

My ortho’s main reservations about Vivera were that once you ask Invisalign to make your aligners they consider your case finished, even if you haven’t used up all your refinement entitlements. In his experience sometimes people do come back a few months after the end of treatment and ask for something extra. If there are still refinements available that weren’t used in the first instance, he can just get another series of aligners made. However, if retainers had been ordered this wouldn’t be possible. A new Invisalign case would have to be opened.

I am on set 12 at the moment and will post more about the trials of those in the next few days. Thank you for all your comments, as ever, they make writing this thing seem worthwhile.

Platinum Elite Invisalign Orthodontists in Australia (Premier Provider Elite in the US)

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When I originally went looking for an orthodontist (read about the whole sorry saga here) one of my prerequisites was that my dentist should be an Invisalign Platinum Provider (Invisalign Premier provider in the US). At the time I was looking this seemed to be the blue chip of Invisalign orthodontics, a sign that the Doctor in question was one of the most experienced orthodontists or dentists in using the Invisalign system.

Then the other day whilst at my orthodontists I noticed a new plaque on his wall. This one congratulated him on being a Platinum Elite Invisalign provider. I was intrigued. Was this just another name for platinum providers, or had the fine people at Invisalign created a whole new tier for our goodly orthodontists to aspire to?
Well a quick search on the Invisalign website has enlightened me. Apparently a platinum provider is the name given for “Doctors who have a high level of Invisalign experience based on the number of patients treated” whilst Platinum Elite providers (Invisalign premier provider elite) are “Doctors who have the highest level of Invisalign experience based on the number of patients treated”
The receptionists at my orthodontists office also told me that Elite status is reassesssed regularly and only those orthodontists that complete enough cases on an ongoing basis retain the Elite title.
As a post script I have just found out that there are silver, gold, platinum and platinum elite providers in the Uk and some other countries!