Welcome back to our two-part blog series on Invisalign® clear aligners and how they compare to traditional metal braces. In our last blog post, we discussed the differences between these two types of braces regarding appearance, comfort, and maintenance. Some additional factors that we will be considering today include oral hygiene, eating with braces, and the end results.
At Rafi Dental Group in Tustin, our dentists and expert staff understand that choosing to straighten your teeth can be a daunting and time-consuming decision. Therefore, we would like to help you consider all of the factors before jumping into the teeth straightening process.
ORAL HYGIENE
Your oral hygiene while wearing any kind of braces is crucial to your oral health. After all, you don’t want to end up with straight teeth that have staining, cavities, or gum disease. Oral hygiene with metal braces can be particularly challenging. Quality brushing and flossing becomes much more difficult when you are navigating around metal brackets, wires, and sometimes rubber bands. This is especially true for teenagers and kids who may be less motivated to go through all the trouble to brush and floss well while wearing braces.
With Invisalign® clear aligners, maintaining good oral hygiene is a no brainer. Without brackets and wires attached to your teeth, brushing and flossing will take the same effort it normally does. The only behavioral adjustment you need to make with Invisalign® is to remember to brush and floss every time you eat or drink, so you are not putting clear aligners back onto dirty teeth.
EATING
One of the biggest hassles that typically comes with braces is the need to change your eating habits. With traditional metal braces, you must avoid certain foods that are too sticky, chewy, crunchy, sugary, or hard. These foods that can damage or stick to your braces can range between gum, corn, apples, nuts, ice, carrots, and more. This can seem like an overwhelming number of restrictions, considering that you will have your braces on for at least a year and probably longer.
Luckily, with Invisalign® clear aligners you can still eat whatever you want. You will take the clear aligners out every time you eat or drink anything besides water, so there are no braces materials that you need to worry about breaking or damaging. Once you are done eating whatever you want, you will simply brush your teeth and put your clear aligners back in.
THE RESULTS
With any type of braces, the goal is to end up with beautiful, straightened teeth. Both traditional metal braces and Invisalign® clear aligners will achieve this goal. However, there may be some differences in these end results. As we’ve discussed, clear aligners allow you to practice better oral hygiene, so you may end up with less staining and brighter and whiter teeth in the end than you might with metal braces. Invisalign® clear aligners can also sometimes produce the end result of straightened teeth faster, depending on your starting point.
SCHEDULE AN APPOINTMENT WITH RAFI DENTAL GROUP TODAY
If you have been wanting to improve the appearance of your smile and straighten your teeth, consider choosing Invisalign® clear aligners as your top braces option. Invisalign® clear aligners do all of the work of traditional metal braces without the obvious appearance, high-maintenance, food restrictions, or oral hygiene limitations of metal braces. If you have additional questions or are interested in scheduling an Invisalign® consultation with one of our trusted dentists, contact Rafi Dental Group in Tustin today. We can’t wait to hear from you!