Invisalign® (clear aligners) in Edison & Highland Park, NJ

If you are considering getting Invisalign®, you must be willing and able to wear the trays as instructed for best results. Invisalign® is most commonly used to correct mild to moderate tooth crookedness and spacing issues. Patients with severe bite problems are usually treated with traditional braces instead because they can be augmented with additional orthodontic appliances like bands or headgear. If you have fixed dental restorations such as bridges or dental implants, you may not be a good candidate for Invisalign® treatment.

• You must wear these trays at least 22 hours per day.
• Every two-to-three weeks, you will move on to the next set of trays in your treatment series.
• This way, you keep constant, gentle pressure on your teeth to move them into the correct position. You will need a quick checkup visit every six weeks or so to ensure treatment is progressing as planned. Invisalign® trays don’t require any special care. You can simply brush them gently and rinse them with warm water whenever you take them out.

Because Invisalign® braces are typically used for less severe bite misalignment, treatment may last six-to-18 months. However, some patients need more time to achieve their desired results. After you are finished with your aligner trays, you will be fitted with a retainer. You must wear this retainer as directed to keep your teeth from drifting back to their old position.

While Invisalign® braces are very comfortable compared to metal braces, they may cause initial soreness by placing pressure on your teeth. You may experience a recurrence of soreness each time you switch to a new set of trays. Over the counter pain relievers may help with this symptom.

After your teeth are moved with any orthodontic procedure the movement needs to be made permanent. With traditional braces, this is done with a retainer. Retainers can be somewhat uncomfortable as they are clicked into the roof of the mouth. Instead of hard plastic retainers with wires, Invisalign® uses Vivera® retainers made of the same material as your original Invisalign® aligners. The retainers are somewhat thicker and more durable because they need to be worn for longer periods than the two-week aligners. Patients receive four Vivera® retainers.

We see our Invisalign® patients every six weeks during their treatment. This allows us to monitor your progress, and we provide the next sets of aligner trays during these appointments.

This is not uncommon, but, of course, the best advice is to be careful with your trays. This isn’t the end of the world. You need to get in touch with us at Gentle Dental and tell us you lost a tray.

Don’t automatically advance to the next set of trays and keep the loss a secret. Unless you are quite near the end of the cycle of the tray you lost, this can alter treatment. If you’re near the time to change out your trays, we may ask you to try the next set and see if they fit. But you can’t force this.

Your Invisalign® treatment includes the potential cost of replacing two trays. We can simply order a replacement of the tray in question from Invisalign®. This will take a couple weeks, but that’s about all that your treatment will be delayed by the loss of a tray.

You’ll receive instructions on how to care for your aligner trays, but here are the basics.

You have options for cleaning the trays. Because you can simply take out your aligners and brush them with your toothbrush, keeping both your teeth and your aligners clean is much easier than with traditional braces. You remove them and gently brush them every night with a toothbrush. You can also soak your aligners in denture cleaner, Retainer Brite®, or the official Invisalign® crystals to keep them clean and sanitized. Or, another option is to use clear anti-bacterial soft hand soap to clean your aligners. You simply rub the trays all over with your fingers and the soap.