Your smile is one of the first things that another person will notice about you when meeting you for the first time, so having a smile that you love and can show off proudly is important. If your front teeth are visibly crooked or have gaps between them then you may end up feeling incredibly insecure about your smile and do whatever you can to hide it from everybody else.
This can leave you feeling excluded in certain situations, or you may end up deliberately avoiding people, so you do not have to worry about being in those awkward situations in the first place. People who have crooked front teeth often believe that they are not suitable for straightening treatments, because it is only their front teeth and not a serious enough misalignment issue to have treated. This is not the case at all, and you can get treatments such as Invisalign Macleod that are specifically designed to focus on those front teeth that are visible when you smile. The treatment itself is not suitable for people who are suffering from major misalignment issues either, so it is important that you book a consultation appointment with your practitioner to check that it is ideal for your situation.
Predicting your smile’s future
Instead of using uncomfortable, messy bite impressions to analyse the position of your teeth, this treatment uses a special 3D scanner to capture a 3D image of your teeth. This image will predict how your teeth need to move to become straight and produce an image for every stage of the process. Your teeth will move gradually between the images, and you will have a set of clear, plastic aligners to wear for each stage. These aligners will be custom made from the images that the scan has produced and fit easily and comfortably over your own teeth. How many different stages of treatment you have will depend on your individual circumstances, but treatment generally takes between six to twelve months.
Dedication gets results
It is important to remember that even though this treatment is convenient and fits around your lifestyle, if you wish for it to work efficiently and produce the smile that you want you will need to take it very seriously. This means making sure that you never remove your aligners for more than two hours a day, you brush your teeth after eating before putting your aligners back in and you never ever try to skip a set of aligners to speed your treatment up. Not wearing your aligners for long enough will result in your teeth moving slower than planned, meaning your treatment will end up taking longer than you had originally expected and you may end up needing additional aligners. If you do not brush your teeth before putting your aligners back in you could end up with plaque build-up around your appliance, which can cause damage to both your teeth and your aligners. Attempting to skip an aligner will only damage your teeth and end up prolonging your treatment. In some cases, you may even need to completely restart it, so it is important that you are dedicated from the beginning and follow the instructions that your practitioner has given you closely.
Any surgical or invasive treatment carries risks. Before proceeding you should seek a second opinion from an appropriately qualified health practitioner.
