Invisalign.com O'Fallon, IL 62269 Soft Touch Dentistry

Invisalign®
O'Fallon, Illinois

Would you like straighter teeth, but aren’t sure you can tolerate braces for a couple of
years? There’s another way of doing it now, and that’s using clear aligners. If your
teeth are mildly to moderately crowded or misaligned, Invisalign offers outstanding
advantages whether you’re a teen or an adult.

Aligners instead of wires!
Instead of having brackets securely affixed to your teeth and a wire connecting them
that is gradually tightened in ways that will re-align your teeth, a series of clear plastic
trays can be worn. Each tray picks up where the previous one left off and in small
increments, they end up repositioning your teeth into a straighter and healthier
alignment.

There are usually 15 to 25 sets of aligners in the series. After two weeks, you set
aside the aligners you’re currently wearing and start wearing the next in the series.
They are barely visible when in place, as they’re made of a clear polymer and are
customized exactly to your teeth’s positioning.

To set up this treatment, Dr. Thompson closely examines the position of your teeth to
plan stages of treatment. Dr. Thompson will take a bite impression of your teeth and
send it to the Invisalign lab. The Invisalign lab uses sophisticated 3-D computer
imaging software to build a series of trays based on those bite impressions. In a
second visit, Dr. Thompson will give you the first few sets and clear instructions on
how to wear them and what to expect.

Check-up visits
Each 4 weeks or so, you’ll have a check-up visit, where Dr. Thompson will monitor
your progress and give you the next few sets of aligners. The average length of
treatment is a year.

Aligners are removable
Ideally, you should wear the aligners 24 hours a day, and remove them only to eat,
drink, brush and floss. But one of the great advantages of straightening your teeth
using Invisalign is that you can remove the trays any time. If you have a special date,
a job interview, or for some other reason you can take them out for a few hours and
simply put them back in when you’re ready again.

This ability to remove them is a valuable freedom, but must not be over-used,
because the aligners work only as long as they’re in position, and 20 to 22 hours per
day is necessary.

If you’re in O'Fallon, Illinois or near St. Louis, Missouri, and would
like to learn more about how Invisalign can straighten your teeth,
please call or e-mail us today to schedule your initial consultation.