If you are ready to receive the beautifully straight smile you’ve always wanted, you’ll be pleased to know that you no longer have to wear metal brackets and wires on your teeth for two to three years. Dr. Susan Dennis is a Platinum Provider of Invisalign® invisible aligners, which will gently move your teeth into their ideal alignment within about a year. And better yet, no one will be able to tell you’re wearing them.
How Invisalign Works
Dr. Dennis will first complete a comprehensive exam and discuss with you whether or not you are a candidate for Invisalign. There are some cases where, because of crowding of the teeth, Invisalign may not be the most effective treatment. Once you have decided to move ahead, Dr. Dennis will take an impression of your teeth to determine the ideal alignment for your teeth. She will then send the impression along with her notes to the Invisalign lab.
Invisalign technicians will then scan your impression into a computer that will help in determining the most efficient set of movements to achieve ideal alignment. The computer then fabricates a series of invisible aligners that will gradually move your teeth into their new positions.
Beginning Invisalign Treatment
Once your aligners come back from the lab, Dr. Dennis will provide them to you along with detailed instructions on how and when to wear them. When you snap in your first set, you will notice that they don’t fit well. This is intentional. They’re designed to move your teeth into a new configuration. After a few days, your teeth will have moved to their new positions, and you’ll continue to wear the aligner for a full two weeks to retain them there. Every two weeks or so, you’ll snap in a new set of aligners, and in the course of about a year, your teeth will achieve the ideal alignment mapped out by Dr. Dennis.
The Advantages of Invisalign
Invisalign invisible aligners are truly invisible. No one will be able to tell you’re wearing them. They are much more comfortable than traditional bracket and wire braces. Because you remove them to eat and perform regular hygiene, they introduce no food restrictions or problems with brushing or flossing. Most importantly, because they are computer-engineered to provide the most efficient movement, they are significantly faster. In addition, they require fewer appointments, and the ones you need will be less involved.
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Do not confuse Invisalign with mail-order orthodontic programs where you mail in scans or impressions of your teeth and receive back aligners from a dentist who has looked at them remotely. Those programs try to cut the cost by eliminating x-rays and the initial clinical examination and doing without direct supervision by a dentist. There have been a number of complaints of these programs from patients including poor customer service, in-service complications, and dissatisfaction with the results. Invisalign, however, enjoys a very high rate of patient satisfaction.
Choosing Your Invisalign Provider
Like any dental procedure, an experienced dentist is a valuable commodity. That experience translates to a more complete understanding of how Invisalign works and what to do when teeth don’t cooperate, bringing better outcomes for her patients. Dr. Dennis is the only Invisalign Platinum Plus Provider in southwest Michigan. A Platinum ranking means not only is she experienced, but those cases were successful.
Itero Scanner
Dr. Dennis takes impressions of your teeth with the iTero 3-D scanner. This creates complete 3-dimensional images of your teeth in 60 seconds and eliminates the need for messy impression pastes. Some of the benefits of iTero technology include:
- Better aligner fit than with physical impressions
- More comfortable—no goop, gagging, or mess
- An interactive image of your teeth that allows you to see the end result before you begin treatment
- You can track your progress at every appointment
If you would like to find out if you are a candidate for Invisalign, request a brief complimentary consultation before committing to a full exam. You may call our office or request an appointment online.
