It sounds like a fairy tale too good to be true. Braces, without
braces!
When Invisalign braces hit the orthodontic market, parents
thought the childhood stigma of being a
”
metalmouth
”
may have come to an end, and for a small number of lucky adults
and kids it has.
It sounds like a fairy tale too good to be true. Braces, without braces!
When Invisalign braces hit the orthodontic market, parents thought the childhood stigma of being a “metalmouth” may have come to an end, and for a small number of lucky adults and kids it has. But the procedure is aimed at just one to three percent of the general population. Why?
Probably because Invisalign braces aren’t braces at all. The system moves teeth by turning and spreading their tops, not actually moving the tooth’s root like traditional braces do, said Richard Gallagher, an orthodontist with offices in Gilroy and Hollister. Gallager attended school at University of the Pacific when the program was being tested there before its public release.
Developed by Zia Chishti, an economics and computer science major who graduated from Columbia University in 1992, the idea came about when he noticed his clear plastic retainer would force his teeth back into place after days of neglect.
Chishti saw product potential in the idea and teamed with Kelsey Wirth, a fellow MBA student at Stanford, to launch Align Technologies, Inc. in 1997. The Sunnyvale-based pair created Invisalign, an impression-based system that uses a series of 35 to 60 plastic trays to straighten mildly crooked teeth.
“It’s not applicable to everyone,” said Gallagher. “It’s not for children at all. They’re growing, so their jaw bones grow at different rates and they don’t want to do it before age 16 or 17. It’s also not applicable in cases where there’s a lot of crowding. What it really works well on is adults who had braces before, didn’t wear their retainer, and just want things realigned.”
Traditional plaster molds are poured and sent to Pakistan, where engineers separate the plaster teeth into individual electronic entities, moving them around until they fit in a seemingly perfect way, said Gallagher.
A film version of the process is then e-mailed to the orthodontist who either approves the shift or makes changes that are more correct. When the orthodontist approves the final film, he or she shows it to the patient, who then makes a decision, said Gallagher.
If the patient decides on the Invisalign system, the plans are e-mailed to a production facility in Mexico that creates the trays and sends them to the recipient in two to three weeks, according to Gallagher.
Each set of trays is worn for two weeks and then discarded, slowly pushing and twisting teeth into their appropriate position.
However, the system isn’t capable of moving the root of the tooth, which means that many of the changes are purely superficial and may reverse at a higher rate than braces over time, said Gallagher, who treats just one to two patients per year with Invisalign trays.
“For people who haven’t worked with them much, at first it’s like, ‘Wow! This is really great!” said Gallagher. “Show me the pudding 10 years or 20 years down the line. The reason getting the root in the right place is a big deal is that long-term, if you chew, it’s going to best for your teeth if you’re striking down with even force.”
Invisalign braces also carry a premium price tag – $5,000 to $8,000 versus the $4,000 to $6,000 for regular braces. A better value for your money, said Gallagher, would be an investment in ceramic brackets and white wires.
They cost $500 to $700 more than regular braces, but are thus far the best of both worlds; effective and barely visible.
