Metal Mouth Message Board

After some serious delays with my refinements(see my other thread) that werent going to arrive until March, my dentist has suggested that instead of refinements I go for ceramic braces as waiting another 2 months for refinements is too long and i will get guaranteed better final results with traditional braces.

He has passed my case to an ortho friend of his(my dentist was an invisalign/cosmetic dentist not an ortho), its no extra cost to me to have these ceramic braces, and he reckons it will only take 3 months.

I have decided to go ahead with this option(getting fitted today), but am somewhat apprehensive about going from the relatively easy invisalign trays to traditional braces with all the pain/eating problems that comes with I am also not sure how realistic just 3 months is or if it will take longer. Anyone else gone through similar experience of moving from invisalign to traditional braces?

Good luck with it!! Hope it goes well!

I didn't have this done, but it was one of my many reasons I didn't go with invisialign. My ortho stated that more than likely I'd have to have braces in the end, so thought I might as well get the traditional braces - hoping to speed the process up.

Thanks!

Yeah after around 20 months in invisalign I am now looking at approx 6 months in these ceramic braces, they are not half as bad as i thought they were going to be to be honest, getting used to them already. Although eating is slightly tricky and takes some getting used to especially compared to how easy it is with invisalign(i.e just take out your braces).

In hindsight, given the extra cost of invisalign compared to ceramic braces(approx an extra £1k-£1.5k) and the timescale its taken and the fact i have now needed braces at the end to get the result i want. I would say the better option for me would have been to have just gone with ceramic braces in the first place, as i would most likely be finished by now.

I think getting it over with is a great idea if another treatment will work better. I had regular braces before and they were really easier to deal with than Invisalign - particularly for an extended treatment. With regular braces, I could eat when I wanted to and there weren't that many restrictions - compared to Invisalign where I can eat anything, but only for 2 hours.

I've been at this now for over two years and three months - really dragging out!! However, in my case, I'm not sure traditional braces would have worked as well due to my age and some pre-existing conditions. If I thought switching would speed things up, I would definitely do it!!

definately go for it. As mentioned above you won't be so restricted with ceramic braces. Especially if it's a case of only 3 months. You never know, you might really get better results than you would have with invisaling. Good luck!

In hindsight, given the extra cost of invisalign compared to ceramic braces(approx an extra £1k-£1.5k) and the timescale its taken and the fact i have now needed braces at the end to get the result i want. I would say the better option for me would have been to have just gone with ceramic braces in the first place, as i would most likely be finished by now.

Redstar99 I totally know how you feel as this happened to me, i started invisalign in October 2008 and was told in December 2010 that it wasnt doing the job it should be after 2 sets of refinements also and expressing my concerns from starting invisalign i had to get Invu brace. I was totally gutted but i must say i can see such an improvement already and i only have 6 more weeks to go am so happy to be near the end.

Its so frustrating that invisalign is so expensive and doesnt work on every case. I wish i would have got the braces in the begining but on the plus side i nearly have lovely teeth.

Good Luck

Final update.

I am actually having the ceramic braces removed this week(had them on for 3 months), my teeth are now more or less perfect. I only really needed the braces to fix an awkward lateral incisor(and as consequence the front tooth next to it) that wouldn't move with my invisalign trays. The ceramic braces are great in terms of how they look, the only downside is now and again the brackets catch the inside of your mouth but i soon got used to it and i actually found that preferable to the constant removal and cleaning of invisalign trays.

The movement i saw in my teeth with the ceramic braces compared to the invisalign trays was incredible, within a couple of weeks i saw more movement from these braces than my last 4-5 invisalign trays(I had 19 Upper trays). I am so pleased now that I agreed to have these ceramic braces to finish the final adjustments rather than invisalign refinements.

To be honest in hindsight i now wish i had actually just gone down the ceramic braces route to begin with compared to invisalign as it would have cost much less and im fairly sure id have been finished faster(its taken 2 years in total).

I always brush my teeth after i eat(when i can) as food does always get stuck in the braces but of course some things are better to eat than others. In terms of pain, it was absolutely fine, think it helped that my teeth had already been moving with the invisalign treatment.

So glad im pretty much finished, my teeth look fab and its been well worth the 2 years of pain/hassle.