Metal Mouth Message Board

I'm getting fitted for aligners next week. I'm really excited. My ortho did say if I need 60 trays, he'd suggest regular braces because, in his experience, people my age (25) start to lose interest, get distracted, or simply cannot remember to use the aligners for 22 hours a day. I'm wondering how many aligners would have too many for you. Please give me a little insight into why your limit would have been the limt (if you ad one). Thanks.

[quote="wwapd"]I'm getting fitted for aligners next week. I'm really excited. My ortho did say if I need 60 trays, he'd suggest regular braces because, in his experience, people my age (25) start to lose interest, get distracted, or simply cannot remember to use the aligners for 22 hours a day. I'm wondering how many aligners would have too many for you. Please give me a little insight into why your limit would have been the limt (if you ad one). Thanks.[/quote]

Back when I was deciding, etc, I would have said that anything more than two years (50 aligners) was too much. Now I'm on aligner 21 of 30 on top and 15 of 18 on the bottom (long story about why I'm behind...and I have no idea if my bottoms will really be done in 8 weeks). I'm starting to think that 30 aligners is about my limit. I'm terrible about putting them back in at work.

I have 13 trays for both upper and lower. I would say around 25 trays would have been too many because I have slight crowding and have already had braces for 3 1/2 years when I was younger and my dentist said if I were to get regular braces that I would only need them for 6-12 months.

My treatment was 14 trays, but I think I could've managed double that if I had to. Any more though, and I'd have just gone with traditional braces. I love snacking too much!

My treatment was advised to be nine months, but when I went in to get my first aligners, I saw there are now 42 of them. GULP! So that's a LONG TIME.

I hope I don't get too lazy about it. Right now I'm being really good, but it's only been a week. lol.

That said, if I'd known it'd take that long, I still would have gone ahead as opposed to metal braces.

Also, I suspect they MIGHT be moving my teeth rather slowly and cautiously due to the presence of past periodontal disease (under control now) and bone loss in certain areas.

I have 42 trays... I already think thats a lot.

But I've seen others with 70+ trays and another person with 90+ trays!

I think I would've went with braces if it was more than 50. I can't imagine myself having to brush my teeth more than 3 times a day for 50+ trays. :O

My upper teeth required 28 aligners which took 14 months to complete. I think if I was told that I need more than 18mths it probably would have turned me off from Invisalign.

Saying that I was 31yo and the time and I certainly never 'lost interest' so I think your ortho is completely wrong there.

Most of our patients are pretty happy with 1.5 years or less. The great news is that using AcceleDent, we've managed to keep that open for most of them. Their "burn out" time also depends on the amount of progress they are seeing and when they are more or less "satisfied".

That being said, I wouldn't count the number of aligners since it depends how often they are changed. There are also aligners that can restart in the middle through mid-course correction, and more aligners in one or more sets of refinement. The great thing about using Invisalign is that no one needs to know you're having your teeth straightened while you're wearing them, when compared to braces.

I've lost count of the number of trays I'm needing.
Last month I hit the 4 year mark. 4 years and I'm still waiting for a 2nd round of refinements. Needless to say the changes have been amazing, my mouth was a total disaster and now looks great.
Have they been too much? It's been a long journey, but a necessary one. Totally worth at the end.

Honestly - any number that would've been double what regular braces would've been. In my case I was told the treatment time would be the same or shorter with Invisalign so it made the decision for me a no-brainer. The only thing that would've gotten me into wires and brackets would've been a huge difference in time. (I'm very self-conscious already about my appearance.)