I started Invisalign treatment in December 2024 without a whole lot of foresight, and it was only after I was fully committed and paid (up front, in full) that I realized the magnitude of the decision and how disruptive it would be to my life. Most of the information I found online about it was unhelpful; either it’s from orthodontists who have a vested interest in underplaying the disruption, or it’s from blogger/influencer-types who don’t have the same pressures of work-life that I do. In the interests of helping anyone else thinking about this, here’s what my experience has been like.
The basics
Even though my teeth weren’t very crooked, I got a “comprehensive” plan which involved:
- 40 trays over 18 months: I started with wearing trays for 14 days, but after tray 19, I was told I could reduce to replacing trays every 10 days. This cut a few months off.
- IPR (Interproximal Reduction): Fancy term for using sand paper to create gaps between your teeth. My initial reason to get Invisalign was to make flossing easier, but it turns out IPR fixed that (and then some) for me on the very first day.
- Buttons and power chains: I had metal buttons installed on three teeth which were accompanied by heavy-duty rubber bands to help rotate my teeth. These went on a few months into my treatment.
- Attachments: These are tooth-colored spikes that are attached to your teeth that the Invisaligns grip on to. You never see attachments in Invisalign marketing material because their models always have perfect teeth. But they’re a part of it, and they’re annoying.
The rules are that I was supposed to wear them between 20-22 hours a day (but nobody could tell me what the difference between 20 and 22 hours per day was). I could only drink tepid water with them in, and I had to take them out whenever I ate or drank anything else.
As of writing, I am about halfway into my treatment. The progression went like this:
- On day one, I had a bunch of attachments put on my teeth, and the aligners snapped on top. The first week was extremely painful because the aligners and attachments tore up the inside of my mouth. Filing them down didn’t help, but eventually my cheeks and tongue got calloused. I just now bite the inside of my cheek more often now.
- About three months in, I had metal buttons and elastics put in. This was a surprise, and they are very difficult to replace and keep clean. They’re not meant to be patient-replaceable (I think), and I received differing instructions about whether I should attempt to replace one or both of my elastics myself. I wound up replacing one of them every two weeks, but the other one was impossible for me to replace myself. These are very uncomfortable.
- About eight months in, I had another attachment installed on a lower-front tooth. This makes it hard to bite down and chew, because my incisor now hits this attachment when I don’t have the aligners in. A consolation prize was being told to switch trays every ten days instead of fourteen; this took three months off my treatment plan.
Truths and falsehoods
There’s a bunch of things I’ve learned the hard way.
- The lisp goes away. This is false; I am eight months in, and my speech is still impacted. The good news is that others don’t really notice this, either at the beginning or as you get used to it.