JudeW

Invisalign Doesn't Always Work. Now I Need Metal Braces at 48.

Yes, the attachments take some getting used to, but they will get easier/smoother. I remember mine being very rough and sharp at first and I too cut my mouth when eating, but I got used to them (learned to chew differently, I think). I discovered when taking the aligners out that if I pulled them slightly toward the outside of my mouth (i.e. forwards) it encourage them to "pop" over and off the aligners, rather than just pulling downwards which is extremely uncomfortable on teeth which are already aching, isn't it? I really wouldn't recommend filing down your attachments as it is these which make the aligner fit and pull on your teeth and achieve the movement - just persevere, they will get smoother and if they haven't smoothed off a bit by your next visit get your dentist to take a look at them. Good luck!

It's really great that so many people are posting on here, as our individual experiences of Invisalign are all different. It's very useful for anyone considering Invisalign to know that it may not necessarily be as 'invisible' as the promotional literature promises, as the post above highlights and so do many others. But for a more meaningful review, prospective Invisalign customers MUST read reviews from people who are a great deal further along in their course of treatment. Three days in, even three weeks in (but not three months :( ) I was delighted and excited about the future outcome. It's a very different story now. I'll stress on here as I have on every other posting I've made: make sure you're seeing an ORTHODONTIST and not a DENTIST. Invisalign really does seem like the promised land as far as straightening your teeth goes, but you need a practitioner who really understands how teeth move. He (or she) will be unlikely to recommend a system which will not achieve the desired result, and even if he insists you need traditional braces, which you might find disappointing and off-putting, at least you won't waste time and money chasing some spurious, promo-movie promised result which has no chance of happening in real life. 1235anon, I wish you all the success in the world with this. Don't let my rant scare you - the lisp DOES go, you get much more skilled at taking them out, you'll even get the knack of taking them out behind a napkin if you absolutely have to (with TEN attachments!), and you get used to the FEEL of the attachments, and even learn to live with the look of them. I bit my mouth eating SO many times when I first had them, but you DO get used to all of it. Like you say, you feel willing to put up with all of that for the promised result. Just make sure you're really likely to get it.

Having read your post above, alarm bells started to ring. I too had no or very little pain with my aligners, until I had a mid course correction (only 14 or so weeks in), when the second set of aligners didn't fit properly at the top. This caused the flesh of my inside upper lip to get caught in the aligner and made them extremely uncomfortable. Several months down the road, it became apparent that Invisalign wasn't working for me and the ill-fitting of the aligners at the top was because they simply were not correcting (and indeed COULD not correct) the problem with my top teeth. I'm only mentioning this to you as 84 weeks for an Invisalign treatment is the longest I have ever heard of, and I just wanted to say: Are you with an orthodontist or a dentist? If you're with a dentist (cosmetic or otherwise), go and pay NOW for a second opinion from an orthodontist regarding the projected outcome. Go to an orthodontist who also offers Invisalign then he will have a good understanding and experience of the possibilities. If ANY of your teeth need significantly rotating, it is unlikely that Invisalign will do the job. Sorry to sound like a doom-merchant: of course I hope it goes smoothly and successfully for you, and you may well already be with an orthodontist who knows what he's doing and is confident of the outcome. Too many people on here, however, went - like me- to a dentist and went on to regret it (and on to traditional braces!). Good luck.

Looking at what I wrote originally, above, and the posts from 'starting over' and other posts on this site, an important theme seems to emerge which is GO TO AN ORTHODONTIST not a dentist. I've just been to see an orthodontist now, hoping that with him I could continue with Invisalign and achieve the result I want. He said that if I had gone to him originally, he would never have suggested Invisalign as a course of treatment because it is unsuccessful at making the kind of corrections my teeth need (rotations). I have at least been offered complete payment of all subsequent orthodontist fees by the cosmetic dentist I went to originally, so I can't complain there. It's frustrating, though, to have lost a year. And I'm anxious about wearing traditional braces. I do, however, have complete confidence in the orthodontist who's going to be carrying out the work, and excited again (as I was at the beginning of the Invisalign treatment) at the thought of finally having straight teeth somewhere down the road! I think it's apalling that Invisalign can be offered in this country (UK) by DENTISTS, when the aligners are capable of making such significant changes (and often for the worse) to a person's teeth. The dentist has no control whatsoever over the outcome; even an orthodontist can only make SUGGESTIONS concerning the production of the aligners. The final cut, and the spurious outcome, is decided in Costa Rica, I believe, where the aligners are actually made. Invisalign with a cosmetic dentist? I advise avoid like the plague.

Wow, you had it worse than me really, bearing in mind your teeth were reasonably OK when you started. Mine were (and still are!) very crooked so in my case its less that a lot of damage has actually been done to me, more that a meaningful result is still a country mile away. I'm going to see my own dentist tomorrow to ask him to refer me to an orthodontist to start to put things right, and I'm taking heart from the fact that you've been able to stick with Invisalign with an orthodontist. I so hope that a practitioner with more (or indeed some!) experience will be able to see a way to make Invisalign work for me in the end. Thanks for your comment on my original post - I agree with you that people need to be much more aware of the difference it makes to undergo Invisalign with an orthodontist and not just a cosmetic dentist. I so wish I'd known that at the start.