More questions about invisalign

[invisaligngirl85]

alright i have just found out that my aligners are in the office, but nobody informed me that they were. i had to call in and ask when they were going to arrive. and it turns out they were already there. Thats very odd to me, and on top of that the receptionist said she doesn't know how long they were sitting in the office.. this freakin sucks cus i already paid 700 dollars.. i really want to change my mind about this. cus too many alarm bells are going off in my head right now.. i want my money back, but its too late.. a part of me want to call it quits, but then i would have wasted 700 dollars for nothing.. Apart of me want to go ahead and try this out, but then if it doesn't work, thats even more wasted money.. what do i do? anyways the real topic at hand is id like to see some of ur cleaning regimens, or daily regimens posted..

how often do u soak ur aligners? twice a day? twice a week? once a week? for how long do you soak them? what do u soak them in? and what r ur cleaning habits in between? what tools do you use?

do any of you ever cheat the system by leaving them out longer than usual? will that make the treatment not work at all, or just prolong it?

[nan]

I never soak my aligners. Whenever I take them out, I rinse them off. Then when I brush my teeth, I brush my aligners too. I've never had a problem with them not seeming clean.

I don't leave mine out for longer than you're suppose to. I figure I paid alot of money to have this down, and I paid it because I didn't like my teeth. So I'm doing whatever I can so that I can be finished as soon as possible. I've been wearing them for so long now that it feels weird to have them off! I'm getting to close to being finished (I'm on set 8 and I have 11 for the top and 12 for the bottom) and I can't wait until I'm finished. I can see such a difference and I'm really excited.

[Bonnie]

I dont soak mine either. I went and bought the smallest toothbrush that I could find at the store and I use that to brush my aligners with toothpaste twice a day. I dont brush them after lunch just because I eat late very small breakfasts so they are only in for a half an hour before they are out again to eat lunch.

I do leave mine out for longer than suggested sometimes. During the week I have them in constantly, but on the weekends we spend a lot of time on the water, so its not practical for me to be standing on a boat in the middle of a lake brushing my teeth. I generally leave them out for 5-8 straight hours every saturday. I talked to my dentist about this and he said that doing it one day a week like that wont hurt my treatment, and its better than losing my aligners while in the water. I am on my 5th set right now and I have not had any problems with my teeth moving. I wouldnt suggest doing it a lot though, you are paying a lot of money for straight teeth so you need to wear them as much as possible! Just get in the habit of carrying a travel toothbrush and a small tube of toothpaste with you when you know you will be eating somewhere.

[Pace]

I am on set 7, I clean my aliners each am with a brush that has a small end and a large end it really works well. I rinse them off each time I take them out and before I put them back in. I try to keep them in as much as possible I think I average about 17 hours a day, more or less. It seems to not really have any affect on the next set fitting. I assume if you can install the new set every 2 weeks then you are moving in the right direction. In closing I am pleased with the program I have a long way to go as my uppers have 32 sets. First week was the hardest and it got better after that. Hope this helps. Don

[invisaligngirl85]

thanks for the replies guys.. what do u use to clean your aligners with? and is it bad to soak them?

[Big_A]

I don't know why you would want to soak them.

Brushing and rinsing work just fine at keeping them clean.

[Stephanie]

I think many people soak them, becuase it is just easier. The retainer brite products and such simply just soak them in water and the product and in a few minutes they come out very clean..

I think this is OK for Invisalign, but why spend more money if you dont have to, unless you are one of those people that sleeps a lot and possibly builds up strong plaque on them, I would just brush them.

[HappyHeart]

I soak mine everyother day with efferdent as I'm a tea drinker and I drink lots of it. I can't possibly take the trays out for every tea... I wouldn't get any results.. LOL
So with that said, My trays get stained and the soaking helps them. I only soak them for about 5 to 10 minutes. The trays never got brittle or cracked so I'm happy with that.

[Zoso]

Try to wear your aligners the recommended amount of time - keeping them out longer is not cheating the system - it's cheating yourself. By doing so, you risk each aligner not being given sufficient time to complete it's work before moving on to the next one, and this can cause a cumulative effect that will, in time, mean that the aligners stop fitting well enough at all, and the whole treatment goes off track. Sometimes the situation can be recovered by stepping back and repeating several aligners (at the cost of delaying treatment by the number of weeks that those aligners need to be repeated) but sometimes it can be bad enough that the treatment needs to be "rebooted" - new impressions taken, and a whole new series of aligners fabricated - the delays incurred then also include the extra time spent waiting for those new trays to be made and sent to your doctor.

[Snowy]

I don't soak my aligners at all. When I take them out to eat I always clean them afterwards with a toothbrush and paste, and brush and floss my teeth...but that's it. It seemed like a real hassle at first but now I'm so used to it that I don't even think about it. It's definitely easier if you cut down on snacking, too - I try to ensure I don't take my aligners out more than 4 times a day (3 meals, plus morning coffee - that's one thing I can't live without.)

I try to be really good about keeping them in for the recommended time. I've missed it once or twice, but never by more than a couple of hours. I've paid a lot of money for this treatment, but more than that - I really want it to work. When I first started Invisalign the lifestyle adjustments did seem really overwhelming, but I made a conscious decision that I had committed to this and I would have to find a way to live with them. The funny thing is that by about aligner 3, I'd stopped even thinking about those things that seemed so overwhelming at the beginning. If you make something a routine, it becomes something you don't even have to think about.

I hope this advice helps. Invisalign definitely requires a degree of self-discipline that isn't required for metal braces, because you don't have that option of just popping them out when they get overwhelming. But the payoffs - the fact that no-one notices them, the ability to take them out to eat, the improved oral hygiene - are enormous.