Deciding whether you want invisalign, braces, or nothing is a tough decision. I am here to share my experience to give you insight on my experience with invisalign to straighten my teeth and bonding to fix broken teeth.
MY BACKSTORY
I went through years of me having these two bad teeth feeling self-conscious. I had no confidence, I didn’t even want to smile in pictures or talk for fear of people seeing my teeth. The tooth that was crooked looked more yellow than the rest of my teeth even if I tried to whiten it. My parents never got me braces because they didn’t think my teeth were bad and they thought having them was a luxury. When I finally got a job and saved up some money, I knew the first thing I wanted to do was get invisalign.
INVISALIGN
Process
1. Moldings with clay
2. Teeth x-rays
3. First visit to get 3 trays – When I first put on my new trays I couldn’t stop gagging and didn’t know how I was going to get through this for 6 months, but after a few days you get used to them and they don’t bother.
4. Get buttons/attachments
5. Go every month to get trays for the month
6. Adjustments if teeth are still not straight, teeth filing
7. Retainers
Details
Treatment time
13 trays, 6+ months, took longer because towards the end one tooth didn't want to straighten
Cost
$4,300, I made one big payment and split the rest into monthly payments
$500 for 1 set of retainers that you have to wear every night for the rest of your life
Pain
Not that painful except the first few days of putting in a new tray, put them in at night and the pain will be bearable
Pros
Removal
You can take off your invisalign trays when you eat or if you just don’t want to have them on because you are filming a youtube video, going to an interview, etc. Although you really should only take them off to eat so that your treatment works within the time frame.
Hygiene
You quickly learn to have good hygiene when you have your invisalign trays on because you will be brushing every time you eat. Below are some links of what I bought in order to keep my invisalign clean, also bought some chewies to help secure the invisalign.
Retainer Brite tablets: http://amzn.to/2nELoqO
Dental Cleaning Case: http://amzn.to/2nRDhGU
Aligner Chewies: http://amzn.to/2nRkPOn
Kissing
You can definitely kiss with them on, it doesn’t really impede from your every day activities.
Cons
Snacks
You can’t really snack throughout your treatment, you can take off the invisalign but because they hurt when taking out you don’t even want to. You are only supposed to take them off 2 hours per day, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and can only drink water with them on.
Brushing
This is good but also something you have to worry about every time you eat. You have to brush your teeth after every meal or else you feel gross if you put them on with dirty teeth. I used to take a zip loc bag to work with travel size brushing essentials like floss, toothpaste, toothbrush, mouthwash, my invisalign trays. When I ate at restaurants and I couldn’t brush I would chew on gum and then brush my teeth as soon as I got home.
Price
Invisalign is more expensive than regular braces because they are pretty much invisible and are a better lifestyle choice for adults. You can also take them on and off so that is a bonus that they charge for.
WHITENING
I got in-office teeth whitening before the bonding so that my teeth were as white as could be and the molding could be matched to my white teeth. I think it was around an hour that I was sitting down with my mouth open with a blue light on to do whitening. They had a color wheel of teeth colors and told me mine was in the yellow spectrum of the colors. They had on some cheesy television show and I was just watching that while siting down. Everything was great until the end when I started gagging but I got over it. They kept coming to check in on me periodically. 
BONDING
I had a broken tooth so I decided to get bonding to fix it so that it could be the same length as my other teeth. I decided to do whitening on my teeth first however so that when they did the bonding they would match it to my whiter teeth. The bonding was a painless process, it is pretty much like they put clay on your tooth and mold it so that it looks like your other teeth. They bond it with your teeth so it looks seamless. The only problem with this is that they told me I could never bite into anything hard like an apple again so that they don’t break. They also filed down my canine teeth because the dentist told me it was too long. I have had the bonding of my teeth for a few months and they have been great so far.
MY EXPERIENCE
I wish I had done my research and gone to a better dentist that specialized in invisalign. Sometimes I felt like the one I went to didn’t know what they were doing. I felt like they just wanted me for my money and didn’t care about my teeth. They tried to sell me veneers too many times when all I wanted was bonding. They also tried to get me to take out all of my wisdom teeth when they are fine. I felt like they were really pushy and just wanted to sell me things to get more money from me. When I would go visit they would also leave me in a room for a long time waiting because the dentist was going to check on patients in and out instead of finishing with one and moving to the next, which I thought was unprofessional. They never provided any information to me, I had to be the one to ask questions, they didn't give me any boxes with my trays only bags, they didn't provide any chewies I had to buy those. They never told me how many months I was going to have my trays for, I had to do the math.
Towards the end of my treatment the tooth that I wanted to be straight was still a little crooked and they were just going to finish my treatment like that if I hadn’t said anything. When I told them I wasn’t happy because they weren’t straight yet the dentist blamed it on me saying I didn’t put the trays in right and that is why they weren’t straight but that wasn’t true, my tooth stopped moving to the shape of the moldings towards the end. So in order to fix it the dentist began to use some sort of tweezers to reshape my trays. I would have expected them to give me new trays but instead he continued using the tweezers on my last set of trays for weeks until he said that is the straightest my tooth was going to get.
I really wanted my bite to be fixed because I have an overbite and sometimes have a hard time eating especially if it is a sandwich or a burger. The dentist told me not to worry about my bite that they would fix it at the end and when I asked at the end they just ignored me. I was really frustrated that I was paying so much and they weren’t going to fix my bite. Most people get rubber bands on their buttons to fix the bite but I never got that. I feel like my teeth are not as straight as they could be, especially my bottom teeth.
In order for me to get free whitening they made me give them a good review on yelp and checked to make sure I did. I did it just to get free whitening but deleted it when I was done. It was a dishonest thing of them to do and now I know why they seem to have good reviews on yelp, they are all bought reviews.
I had a bad experience with my particular dentist but in terms of invisalign I am glad I got them. If you are not happy with your teeth and it takes away from your confidence I would definitely recommend that you get either invisalign or braces. When you have straight teeth you feel like a different person, more confident and happy to be smiling everywhere.
