The Advantages And Disadvantages Invisalign
The Advantages And Disadvantages Invisalign
Invisalign is a series of clear, removable teeth aligners that both orthodontists and dentists use as an alternative to traditional metal dental braces. In fact, its popularity and efficacy and range of cases that this appliance system can treat has been steadily increasing over time as it undergoes constant refinements.
Advantages
The most obvious advantage of the treatment is superior aesthetics with these aligners being completely transparent. It is a fact that when these aligners are in the patient's mouth, the casual observer can hardly notice it and this fact alone has made it extremely popular with the socially conscious patient and especially working adults.
With the latest in thermoplastic materials brought to bear in this appliance system, the thin aligners make for the ultimate in comfort compared to all other orthodontic appliance systems. Each aligner measures only 0.5mm in thickness which is as good as not being there!
Indeed, one of the most often heard complaints of having to avoid certain foods with conventional braces does not even apply to this space age technology as patients are free to remove the appliance during eating and this means that they can just about eat anything they want!
While these advantages would be of great importance to the patient, there are also significant advantages to this system over conventional braces which specialists all over the world are beginning to appreciate.
While studies show that approximately 50% of all fixed appliance cases have areas of tooth damage due to accumulated plaque around the appliance, the invisalign appliance is removable and therefore patients are free to clean unhindered and therefore free to maintain their teeth in pristine condition. Many studies also show that the force levels with invisalign are much lower than conventional braces and therefore patients report significantly lower levels of pain!
The full benefit of the latest 3D computer graphic technology is also brought to bear on delivering a fully controlled appliance system. Patients, with the help of the orthodontist can see on computer and step by step the tooth movements that each aligner is expected to produce. The expected end result can be seen by the patient and the patient is free to give his input. Adjutments can be made and the patient will be free to see how the new adjustments will affect the end result. No such technology exists for patients who go the conventional route.
Invisalign treatments have been claimed to be quicker than traditional orthodontics. A large-scale study of 408 patients with traditional appliances in Indiana took an average of 35.92 months with a maximum of 96 months, while Invisalign takes between 12-18 months. In a much smaller study, Invisalign was shown to be faster and achieve straighter teeth than alternatives but relapsed to ultimately get similar results to the traditional appliances examined. The study was considered by the authors, however, to be too small for many conclusions to be statistically significant. Furthermore, this general concept that Invisalign is faster has been challenged by the Invisalign review which points out that there are other braces appliance systems that take half the time, for example by incorporating surgery or temporary implants that insert into the patient's bone, to accelerate the procedure.
Disadvantages
Like any appliance system, disadvantages do exist. The main one is that of compliance. Patients are free to remove the aligners and therefore the undisciplned patient is prone to not keeping the aligners in the mouth. Once this happens, teeth do not move according to plan and this increases treatment time or worse still, the entire sequence of aligners have to be discarded and a new set of retainers will have to be fabricated.
Patients who grind their teeth have been known to wear through their appliances. However, considering that each aligner need only be worn for 2 weeks, the likelihood of this happening is minimal at best.
Lastly, the biggest factor is cost. Due to the significantly higher fees charged by the manufacturers, this increase is passed on to the patient and invisalign appliances are more expensive compared with conventional braces.
However, judging from the exponential growth of patients over the years, the benefits obviously far outweigh the marginally increased cost.
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