Invisalign Tips and Tricks from Your Winter Park Dentist
Although Invisalign treatment is typically a more comfortable way to straighten teeth than traditional “wire and bracket” braces, shifting your teeth may still cause temporary discomfort and inconvenience. To help our patients begin Invisalign treatment, we've compiled a list of tips and included our Ivory Dental small amenity kit for Invisalign patients!
Will I feel discomfort from wearing Invisalign?
Most patients report that the first week of treatment is the most uncomfortable. Don't worry; it gets much better! Make it through those first two or three nights; the rest of your treatment should feel like a breeze. If you need it, an over-the-counter pain reliever like Tylenol or Advil can help relieve any discomfort (assuming you don't have any medical conditions preventing the usage of these pain relievers). If your discomfort from teeth shifting and soreness persists, contact your local Winter Park dentist.
Although the Invisalign clear alignersm/ are thin and smooth, your lips and mouth may feel tighter in some spots as you adapt to the treatment. We provide a small case of “ortho wax” (medical grade paraffin wax) to help smooth out any tight or uncomfortable spots while your lips and mouth adapt to the treatment. You can apply a small pea-sized amount of un-colored Ortho Wax on top of the aligner to cover and smooth out any spots causing you irritation.
Finally, you should never bite down directly on your aligners. It is possible to bite down when an aligner isn't seated correctly and permanently deform it (rendering it unusable) or accidentally push an edge into your gums (ouch!). If you feel an aligner is not fully seated, first try removing and re-seating them. However, in our Invisalign amenity kit, we also include a soft bite aid (often called "Chewies") as a soft aid to safely bite down on the aligners.
How does my Winter Park dentist recommend cleaning my aligners?
Keeping your aligners clean is just as important as keeping your teeth clean. Essentially, when wearing your aligners, you are doubling the surface area for bacteria and harmful substances to stay on. In our experience, patients who keep their aligners clean with regular brushing using a toothbrush and hand/dish soap have the cleanest and clearest aligners. We do not recommend using toothpaste, as it is abrasive and will not clean your aligners the same way they clean your teeth. We do realize that additional brushing can be a chore. Therefore, we include samples of self-clean tablet products like "Retainer Brite" or Invisalign's own cleaning crystals, which make daily cleaning of your aligners much easier by simply dropping them in a cup of water and the tablet. However, even when using these tablet-based cleaning products, we recommend brushing them with soap and water once a week.
How should I remove my Invisalign clear aligners?
We recommend being comfortable removing your aligners with your (clean) fingers because you'll always have them with you! Therefore, during your Invisalign Start appointment (first day of treatment), we go through some one-on-one training and practice to ensure you are comfortable taking your aligners on and off with just your fingers. Specifically, we'll go over how we recommend "unlocking" them before gently pulling them off and how your specific Invisalign "buttons" may suggest a different technique for you. Some patients, however, use a removal aid like a "Pul tool" or "Orthokey" instead of their hands. We also include one of these in the Invisalign amenity kit from your Winter Park dentist. For those with a more petite mouth, who have their aligners covering the wisdom teeth, or with decorative nails, a removal aid can be a daily use item to make removal much more manageable.
What if I lose an Invisalign clear aligner?
Your aligners will become part of your daily life and thus can become lost or misplaced. The most common scenario is not bringing a dedicated case to a restaurant and temporarily placing your clear aligners on a napkin. A well-meaning waiter or waitress may accidentally throw away your clear aligners when they can’t see them in your used napkin. For this reason, we give you an additional case (on top of the included Invisalign case) so you have a dedicated place to store your backup aligner. What do we mean by “backup aligner”?
We recommend keeping your previous aligner during each stage of active treatment. This way, that “backup aligner” can be used as a retainer in case you lose your current active aligner. For example, suppose you lose aligner #4 and are not ready to move to #5. In that case, you need aligner #3 as a backup to hold your progress while your local Winter Park dentist orders replacements. Losing an aligner can delay your treatment. We advise keeping at least one previous aligner in a safe place, just in case you lose your current aligner. Replacements can be re-made for a small fee.
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