Cyrus Parvis, BDS

Looks like the heat may well  have distorted your retainer. If you can still wear it with not much discomfort,  try to do so to prevent “ drifting “ and movement of your teeth.

 As soon as you get back see your orthodontist / dentist to consider making a new set of retainers. Again having a spare as mentioned may be worth considering.

A small gap is  normal and indeed essential to allow you to clean around and under your bridge and maintain good oral hygiene around the bridge. Ideally you should have been shown how to do this using Interspace brushes and Super floss.

I would not expect a patient  to pay for a healing abutment / cover that was ingested . There is a cost to the dentist for a new one but I think it would be unreasonable for the patient to pay . 

One  could argue that it may have not been tightened to a high enough torque allowing  it to loosen and  so be lost.

Invisalign aligners and fixed or  “train track” type braces  both allow the dentist to move your  teeth. They do  however  work in very different ways.

Fixed braces have small  metal or sometimes white  brackets which are glued onto your teeth and cannot be removed during treatment. Wires are then attached onto these brackets and changed during the course of the treatment until the desired tooth movements are achieved. Treatment takes usually between 12-24 months for most treatments.

Invisalign consist of a series of clear aligners . Each pair of aligners (an upper and matching lower), moves your teeth by a pre determined amount before the next aligners is then worn which further moves the teeth . There are no brackets attached to your teeth although often very small white “attachments” essentially “white coloured surface attached  filings “ are placed to the surface of specific  teeth to aid in movement but these are almost undetectable.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both systems;

For some complex treatment Invisalign will not get the results possible with fixed braces. However for many cases Invisalign can get a perfectly acceptable result.

Fixed braces are generally cheaper than Invisalign.

Invisalign allows you to see an animated demonstration of the proposed treatment and resulting outcome using software which allows you to see the prosed final result before you start  - called  a  “ Clinicheck” . This is not the case with Fixed braces.

Treatment times are comparable with both systems and come sometimes be quicker with Invisalign.

Fixed braces cannot be removed by the patient while with Invisalign  the dentist is relying on a patient wearing the aligners  for 22 hours a day which can be a problem if the patient is not motivated to do so.   

Invisalign are cosmetically superior to fixed braces . Fixed train track braces are quite poor aesthetically even if one uses white rather than metal brackets as it has a wire attaching them to your teeth – hence the term “train tracks”. One cannot normally see that a person is wearing their Invisalign aligners while with fixed braces it is quite evident. As a result many patients and  especially adults  do not like fixed braces as an option.

With fixed braces care has to be taken when eating as brackets can break off. This will necessitate further  dental visits to have these repaired . This may  prolong treatment time and can  be chargeable. Invisible aligner type  braces do not have this disadvantage although the  aligners can be lost and sometimes  broken.

Another big benefit with Invisalign   is that the aligner  can be removed to clean your teeth where as this is not possible with fixed braces .

This really depends on the particular case specifics in terms of the  presence of infection , amount of grafting required , cosmetic requirements and  even sometimes the medical history of the patient..

In some instances an implant can be placed at the time of extraction with grafting , sometimes  wait 3-6 weeks following extraction  and sometimes if it is a more extensive bone graft it could be 6 months.