Invisalign is a common orthodontic treatment that uses clear aligners to adjust your teeth into their correct position over time, much like traditional braces. It’s also one of the most popular procedures in cosmetic dentistry. If your cosmetic dentist has recommended Invisalign treatment, it’s important to follow instructions carefully to get the most from your treatment. These Invisalign tips can help you improve your treatment success and make the treatment process as easy and comfortable as possible.
#1. Wear your aligners!
The biggest mistake you can make is simply failing to wear your aligners as often as you should. The goal is to get as close to 22 hours per day as you can. If you leave your aligners out for too long, it can extend the treatment process or hinder results. During the first 2 days, wear your aligner trays as much as possible, removing them only to brush and floss your teeth.
#2. Change your aligners on time
Dr. Mishaan will give you a schedule for when you should change your aligners and in which order they should be changed. Each set is typically worn for two weeks. We recommend not trying to speed up your treatment by switching to the next set of aligners too soon, because this could ultimately delay the overall treatment period.
#3. Combat tenderness as you adjust to the aligners
At our dental office, we always take extra care to ensure that the aligners will sit comfortably in your mouth. Still, some people do experience some discomfort while adjusting to the aligners.
The good news is you can take steps to combat the tenderness and soreness to feel more comfortable during the adjustment process. We recommend trying these Invisalign tips if you experience sore gums:
When you can have your aligners out, suck on an ice cube to numb your gums.
Avoid crunchy, chewy, and crispy foods when you notice soreness of your gums or teeth.
When it’s time to switch to a new aligner, make the switch early in the day. This gives you plenty of time to adjust to the tenderness before you need to sleep.
If you feel a rough edge, discuss it with your dentist so it can be fixed.
#4. Keep the last set of aligners
Don’t toss your old aligners when it’s time for the new set. Always keep the last set on hand just in case you break or lose your aligners. This way, you have a backup set while you wait for the replacement set. Wear the last set of aligners to prevent your teeth from moving back into their previous position. Once your replacement set comes in, restart the 2-week process to avoid too much delay in your progress.
#5. Rinse, brush, and floss regularly
You will need to take your aligners out at least twice a day to brush and floss your teeth and use mouthwash. Remembering good oral hygiene is still required to ensure your mouth stays healthy and clean while wearing Invisalign.
#6. Practice makes perfect
Fun fact: there can sometimes be a learning curve to speaking normally with aligners in place. At first, you may speak with a slight lisp. Keep practicing talking with the aligners in; it shouldn’t take more than a few days until the lisp isn’t noticeable and you’re back to your normal speech.
#7. Attachments can speed up your treatment
Don’t be afraid to opt for attachments or “buttons” to speed up your treatment. These attachments can hold aligners in place, move a tooth, and treat a broader range of orthodontic cases that the plastic aligners could not otherwise treat. The “buttons” are tiny tooth-colored dots of bonding material usually on the middle of your teeth at strategic locations. These attachments work by ensuring there is the right amount of force in the right places to pull your teeth into alignment.
#8. Take care of the aligners
The aligners are easy to clean and take care of with warm water and antibacterial soap. Regular soap and water are usually fine to clean the aligners but you may also use cleaning products specifically for plastic orthodontics. At our office, we always make sure our patients have the correct and most effective cleaning products for their aligners. We recommend never using toothpaste to clean the trays because it can scratch the plastic.
#9. Wear your retainer after treatment
Once you’ve finished using the Invisalign aligners, you will need to use a retainer to help hold your teeth in their new positions. Unfortunately, some patients think their retainer isn’t all that important because their teeth look straight and perfect. If you skip the retainer though, your teeth may drift back out of alignment. So, we always recommend working with your Invisalign specialist to determine how often and for how long you should wear your retainer upon completing treatment.
Considering an alternative to traditional braces to straighten your teeth? To learn more about how aligners can give you a straighter and more beautiful smile contact us to schedule a free consultation with one of our dentists.
Although it is commonly believed that the teeth are fused or attached to the surrounding bone structures of the jaw, in reality, the roots are surrounded by a soft periodontal ligament. This is why when you press against a tooth or slightly “wiggle” it, you can feel slight movement. Orthodontics treatment is basically the same idea but on a full treatment scale. Orthodontic treatment involves moving or tilting and holding the teeth into a new position. The pressure supplied by orthodontic apparatuses allows the soft “housing” around the tooth to change shape and permit the gradual movement of the teeth.
When this pressure is applied to the teeth and the supporting structure for an extended period of time, the fibers of the periodontal ligament are stretched and contorted. Due to the fact that these fibers are very elastic, once braces or other orthodontic equipment is removed there is a high tendency for the ligament to restore the placement of the teeth into their original position. This happens most often in the short term.
The general layout of your bite and teeth is mostly dictated by genetics.However, there are other factors that contribute to the eventual look and feel of your smile. Tongue placement and movement, cheek size, and speech, swallowing, and breathing patterns can change the placement of your teeth.Therefore, these factors can also aid in poor retention of orthodontic results.
After many long months of braces, the last thing you want is for all your hard work to go undone. Therefore, it is necessary to prevent a relapse.Many patients will be given a retainer to wear after treatment has finished.Retainers are removable plates that fit around the teeth to prohibit movement. Retainers are generally worn while the patient sleeps.Eventually, the retainers can be worn less frequently as the periodontal ligament losses elasticity.
Many patients are not bothered by their retainers. In order to retain the perfect results caused by proper orthodontic procedures, a patient is advised to wear their retainer every night, indefinitely. For patients who find retainers cumbersome, but would still like to retain their perfect smile, many dentists will recommend a bonded retainer.
A bonded retainer is a small wire attached to the back of the front teeth.Since the bonded retainer rests behind the teeth, there are obviously no aesthetic drawbacks. The bonded retainer does not hinder dental hygiene. It is very easy to floss between the bonds and your dentist can check stability and gum health during each visit. As life gets busier and the hours in the day seem to shorten, not many patients have the time or the mind to gain good habits with their removable retainer. That is why the bonded retainer has become so popular with orthodontists and their patients in the last couple years. Maintaining that beautiful smile is easier than you think!
Daniell Mishaan, D.M.D. is a Cosmetic and Restorative dentist in the Garment District in midtown Manhattan. He serves patients from all over New York City and is open Sundays for all patients including emergencies.
A new review of studies delves into how to beat bad breath (halitosis) — and gives high marks to mouthwashes.
Researchers led by Zbys Fedorowicz from the Bahrain Ministry of Health reviewed results from five studies with participants who were randomly given mouthwashes or placebo; 293 people in Thailand, the U.S, the Netherlands, Spain, and Israel took part.
According to background information provided by the researchers, halitosis is widespread around the world: Up to half of people in the U.S. say they have bad breath, 50-60% of people in France complain of it, and 24% of Japanese say it’s a problem.
The participants in the data review were adults over 18 years old who did not have any serious chronic gum or mouth diseases or other conditions such as diabetes, which can bring on bad breath. What researchers found when they compared data is that the type of mouthwash can make a difference in either masking or eliminating bad breath.
“We found that antibacterial mouth rinses, as well as those containing chemicals that neutralize odors, are actually very good at controlling bad breath,” Fedorowicz says in a news release.
But researchers also found that mouthwashes that contain chlorhexidine can temporarily stain the teeth and tongue and reduce taste in one trial.
Researchers also found: Mouthwash containing antibacterial ingredients such as chlorhexidine (Elgydium Refreshing Mouthwash) and cetylpyridinium (Crest Pro-Health Mouthrinse, and BreathRx) did the job of getting rid of bad breath better than a placebo. This is likely due to decreasing the amount of bacteria in the mouth responsible for bad breath. Mouthwash with chlorine dioxide (Profresh, and TheraBreath) and zinc (TheraBreath, and BreathRx) helped to wipe out bad smells by neutralizing them. Bad breath is caused by bacteria and traces of food that collect in the back of and creases of the tongue.
Researchers write that these particles and bacteria then “break down into volatile sulphur compounds,” which are responsible for the smell. Dr. Mishaan believes that having good oral health requires proper brushing and flossing habits. Do not forget to brush your tongue to remove bacteria and keep your breathe fresh! Please be aware that if you have chronic bad breath it is a potential sign of infection and you should visit your dentist to have this issue resolved.
Daniell Mishaan, D.M.D. is a Cosmetic and Restorative dentist in the Garment District in midtown Manhattan. He serves patients from all over New York City and is open Sundays for all patients including emergencies.
Source: Kelley Colihan for WebMD Health News
For a healthy smile brush between meals, floss regularly and eat plenty of chocolate
According to Tulane University doctoral candidate Arman Sadeghpour an extract of cocoa powder that occurs naturally in chocolates, teas, and other products might be an effective natural alternative to fluoride in toothpaste. In fact, his research revealed that the cocoa extract was even more effective than fluoride in fighting cavities.
The extract, a white crystalline powder whose chemical makeup is similar to caffeine, helps harden teeth enamel, making users less susceptible to tooth decay. The cocoa extract could offer the first major innovation to commercial toothpaste since manufacturers began adding fluoride to toothpaste in 1914.
The extract has been proven effective in the animal model, but it will probably be another two to four years before the product is approved for human use and available for sale, Sadeghpour says. But he has already created a prototype of peppermint flavored toothpaste with the cavity-fighting cocoa extract added, and his doctoral thesis research compared the extract side by side to fluoride on the enamel surface of human teeth.
I am curious to know what you think of this research. I find it hard to believe! Read more.
Dentists have warned for years that keeping your teeth brushed and flossed can drastically cut down on gum disease, as well as reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke. Now, researchers at West Virginia University have found a clean mouth may also help preserve memory.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a $1.3 million grant over four years to further build on studies linking gum disease and mild to moderate memory loss.
“Older people might want to know there’s more reason to keep their mouths clean — to brush and floss — than ever,” said Richard Crout, D.M.D., Ph.D., an expert on gum disease and associate dean for research in the WVU School of Dentistry. “You’ll not only be more likely to keep your teeth, but you’ll also reduce your risk of heart attack, stroke and memory loss.”
Crout will share the grant with gerontologist Bei Wu, Ph.D., formerly of WVU and now a researcher at the University of North Carolina; Brenda L. Plassman, Ph.D., of Duke University, a nationally recognized scientist in the field of memory research; and Jersey Liang, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Michigan. Wu is the principal investigator.
The team will look at health records over many years of several thousand Americans.
“This could have great implications for health of our aging populations,” Crout said. “With rates of Alzheimer’s skyrocketing, imagine the benefits of knowing that keeping the mouth free of infection could cut down on cases of dementia.”
The research builds on an ongoing study of West Virginians aged 70 and older. Working with the WVU School of Medicine, School of Dentistry researchers have given oral exams and memory tests to 270 elderly people in more than a dozen West Virginia counties.
Funded by a $419,000 two-year grant, they’ve discovered that about 23 percent of the group suffers from mild to moderate memory loss.
A blood draw is also part of the study for research subjects who agree.
“If you have a gum infection, you’ll have an increased level of inflammatory byproducts,” Crout explained. “We’re looking for markers in the blood that show inflammation to see if there is a link to memory problems. We’d like to go full circle and do an intervention — to clean up some of the problems in the mouth and then see if the inflammatory markers go down.”
Researchers don’t yet understand whether microorganisms in the mouth create health problems or whether the body’s inflammatory response is to blame. It may be a combination of both. Researchers also don’t know much about mild to moderate memory loss, even though the connection between severe dementia and gum disease is well-known, Crout said.
In the future, dentists may routinely administer memory tests to their older patients, he said.
“A dentist may see a longtime, older patient with an area of the mouth that’s showing signs of inflammation because of not being properly cleaned daily,” Crout said. “Many times we as clinicians, however, don’t think of this as due to a memory problem. The patient may not be flossing or brushing properly as we have instructed they should. But this research indicates that the problem may be due to memory loss as opposed to noncompliance.”
Daniell Mishaan, D.M.D. is a dentist in the Garment District in midtown Manhattan. He serves patients from all over New York City and is open Sundays for all patients including emergencies.
Source: West Virginia University Health Sciences Center
