Invisalign – Orthodontic treatment to brighten your smile

Invisalign, quite a new word but often heard in this century especially. Now, if we are really, really lucky, we may only visit our local dental surgeon for an annual check-up. However, most kids, adolescents and adults alike more often than not require some form of dental or orthodontic remedial treatment during their lives. Alignment is all too important at an early age.

The girls wish to have a spectacular smile when they grow up and indeed, it sometimes helps them acquire that job they were seeking. However, this is all very well but we need to make sure we have a good mouthful of teeth. At school, we see friends and colleagues smile and wonder why they have gaps between their teeth. We see crooked teeth and more often than not, we may see our friends being overshot or undershot. Hopefully when we grow up we don’t see too much of that especially when we have had that all important orthodontic treatment. The onus is really on our parents to make sure we have teeth to be proud of at an early age and it goes without saying that brushing daily and/or after a meal is all important. So, where does Invisalign come in?

This daily treatment of brushing is often not enough if we have misaligned teeth and, misaligned teeth often mean we have an incorrect bite. To explain this better, we see some teeth biting behind the others whilst some bite in front of the upper or lower teeth. We can refer to this as an anterior cross-bite and it needs treatment! On the other hand, if we have front teeth that do not overlap correctly, maybe biting in front of the lower teeth, we may well have an open bite. You may well have heard a dental surgeon remark that they have “opened someone’s bite” but this is for a specific purpose and we will not deal with this at the moment.

Overcrowded or badly spaced teeth need treatment at the earliest possible opportunity. Why is this? Because, treatment or re-aligning of teeth is much easier if treatment is performed at an early age. Whilst still growing into adulthood teeth settle more firmly in the gum socket and are therefore, more difficult to move. Also, the process takes more time than if done whilst these teeth have firmly seated themselves.

This does not necessarily mean that we are too old to have treatment. Orthodontic treatment is given to adults as it is given to children. Adults may need remedial treatment for a problem that is causing pain for example which must be treated.

So, let us consider these facts. Invisalign, a treatment performed by orthodontic specialists has many lasting and cosmetic effects and often allows us to be more forthcoming in our approach to say a job application, for example. It allows others to see us differently, to see we care about our looks. Not only are we concerned with looks but misaligned teeth can cause discomfort and which may last for the rest of our lives. We do need to take care of ourselves and hope our parents do likewise.