If you follow my journey along on Instagram @inspiredbynick, you may already know that I’ve recently finished a full year of Invisalign treatment.
One year and $6000.00 cdn later, I’m answering: Is Invisalign really worth it?
Right off the bat, I’ll share that yes, I think it was worth it.
Was I in love with the process? No.
Am I happy with the results? One thousand percent yes.
I started my treatment in August of 2017. I had crowding in my bottom front teeth, and two teeth in the top row that were unaligned and twisted out of place.
My friends and family all said that my crooked teeth weren’t that visible to them when I smiled. But this was a personal insecurity I ultimately wanted to overcome.
The full timeline and story behind what brought me to Invisalign is this –
- 2000: age 10, I got braces. The treatment lasted roughly two years, with multiple visits to the orthodontist, tightening of the braces / wires, elastic bands… all the works.
- 2001: I had a neck-gear that I had to wear at night simultaneously with the braces.
- 2002: the braces treatment was coming to an end, and now I had to wear retainers for 22 hours out of the day. Eventually I would wear the retainers at night only (12 hours/day). The orthodontist told me I would have to wear my retainers until some time between the ages of 21-25. Keep in mind that I still had all four of my wisdom teeth, without any plans of having them taken out. “They were growing in place” the doctors said.
- 2003: age 13, entering high school and VERY happy to have straight teeth without any metal in my mouth. Not during the day, anyway — retainers only at night.
- 2004-2006: I wore my retainer almost religiously. Every night, I would brush my teeth, floss, and the retainers went in. Routine down packed.
- 2007: at seventeen, my teeth were straight, and thought I was set for life. I was finishing high school, about to head to college, and figured I wouldn’t have to wait to 21 to stop wearing the retainers. So I stuffed them at the back of my nightstand drawer and decided I would just wear them once in a blue moon.
- 2007-2011: four year later… low and behold, the orthodontist actually knew what he was talking about. My teeth completely shifted, particularly the bottom row as my wisdom teeth continued growing in. I had a completely crowded bottom front row, and one of my top incisors was literally rotating 90 degrees.
- 2011-2016: over the years I think I just got used to living with the fact that my teeth weren’t going to be as straight as they used to be. Though, I hated the way they looked, and that was slowly starting to manifest into a major insecurity for me.
- 2017: so at 27, I decided I wanted to correct the issue, but certainly didn’t want to go through braces again. Having braces as an adult is an entirely different story, and with Invisalign, I liked that it took half the time as braces, without any metal in your mouth, and with similar results.
- 2017-2018: my Invisalign treatment lasted a total of 12 months, but for only 10 of those months did I have the Invisalign trays in my mouth.
My Invisalign treatment cost $6000 CAD, and lasted 10-12 months.
My final trays came out July 3rd, 2018, but I had a month to wait to let my bite settle in after the teeth had shifted. And my next appointment (one month from that date) would be a reassessment to see if I would need any additional refinement trays.
Honestly, it felt SO good to finally have my teeth realigned to where they should have been if I had continued wearing my retainers into later years.
My crooked teeth had been a sore spot for me because I knew it was my own fault that they had shifted into a distorted state. All I’d wanted to have was my “perfect smile” again, like I had when I was seventeen.
I wanted to feel confident smiling in photos again.
As a full time blogger who lives in Toronto, a city where a lot of companies’ national events are held, being photographed is inevitable. In no way do I mean to sound like I’m hiding from the paparazzi or anything (by any stretch of the imagination). Not at all! But the fact is, there are always photographers at events, and I caught myself avoiding being photographed and consciously choosing to smile without showing my teeth. I didn’t want to feel that way anymore; insecure.
And that doesn’t even consider the fact that as bloggers, we share so much of our personal lives with our audiences on our blogs and social media.
Yes Invisalign was expensive (and not covered by insurance for adults since it’s considered to be cosmetic/elective) but it was worth it.
Q: How does Invisalign work? What is the treatment like?
As for the treatment, this is how it worked:
- You go in for an initial visit, to see if you would be eligible as an Invisalign candidate.
- If you are, the dentist will take impressions of your teeth, either via a digital scanner, or by taking molds. They’ll send the impressions to Invisalign, and with 3D printing, Invisalign will essentially “project” what your smile (and the alignment of your teeth) will look like in a final state.
- They’ll “print out” plastic trays that you’ll need to replace every two weeks, and that will clip onto the “buttons” that the dentist glues onto your teeth.
- Therefore, every two weeks, the trays will be pulling on your teeth slightly toward the desired final state.
Everything will really depend on your candidacy, and how your dentist operates, but for me, I was an ideal candidate for Invisalign. I would check in with my dentist every 6-8 weeks (after 3-4 trays) just to make sure progress was being made correctly.
Throughout the treatment, it’s important to brush and floss after every meal.
It really forces you to keep things clean, which is a great routine. After everything was said and done though, it was important for me to have my teeth properly whitened. I searched for a lot of natural options, but ultimately couldn’t find anything that worked quite like professional whitening.
And as a toxin- and chemical-averse person, I knew that to get the results I truly wanted, I would need to come around on getting them professionally whitened.
Later this week I’ll be sharing the professional teeth whitening services I used in my own home to get that super white finish on them! So stay tuned for that!
If you’re currently considering Invisalign but worried about being eligible or about the cost, talk to your dentist. It’s worth having a conversation in my opinion. The dentist may even offer a payment plan that could help space payments out over the course of the treatment.
You are always welcome to drop a comment below and I’ll share any more details or answer any questions you may have!
Nick Joly | Inspired by Nick
be good to your body
inspiredbynick.com
[…] may have seen in a recent post, I shared my full teeth-straightening experience with Invisalign. In there I talked about the full process, and whether or not I think Invisalign is worth […]