After 3 years of invisalign + elastics, I am now considered done. I originally had a significant anterior open bite( >8mm) and was considered a difficult case. It's a long story, but I was wearing a nightguard for a number of years and my ortho thinks it caused my open bite. The nightguard did not fit well. In addition, I have some bone loss which may be due to my open bite, but also the clenching and grinding I was doing at night. It was suggested that I have orthodontia to straighten out my bite. Because of the bone loss, invisalign was recommended since it was slower and gentler than wire braces. Unfortunately, although I now have straight teeth, my bite has not been fixed! I have a class 1 occlusion, but I am still only contacting on my back molars. My bite feels really off, and I keep banging into teeth. My ortho does not want to put me in wire braces since he thinks it will be too risky with the bone loss I have. My dentist thinks he can fix my bite by adding composite to my teeth, since some of them are close to touching. He would then like to fit me with a nightguard for my upper teeth and a removable wire retainer for the bottom lowers.
My question for those of you that clench and grind - what has your dentist or ortho done post braces to address your night time grinding/clenching problem? I am in Vivera retainers (similar to essix), but I don't really feel it's protecting me. I wore them for six months, and now I am only wearing them when I go to bed. Yes, it's protecting the tooth structure, but I can really feel pain going into my jaw. For some unexplained reason, my ortho does not want me in wire retainers. I'm assuming wire retainers are Hawley retainers? He said that the wire retainers will only hold the front 6 teeth in place and not the teeth in the rest of the arch. Is this true? I see that many of you have Hawley retainers. Do you feel that they are holding your teeth in place? My ortho also think my open bite will come back, if I do not stick with the Vivera retainers.
invisalign nighmare
Moderator: bbsadmin
Re: invisalign nighmare
The wire retainers your ortho seems to be talking about are not hawleys. I think he's talking about permanent wire retainers, which are glued to the back of your front six teeth. They do not prevent relapse of any other teeth. Furthermore, a hawley won't protect your teeth any more than an essix-style (vivera style) retainer. In fact, a hawley doesn't cover the surface of your teeth at all, so it would protect less.
Re: invisalign nighmare
Your experience is very similar to mine. I was told initially I had a difficult case that could be difficult to correct and even more difficult to maintain. I had a severe deep bite where my lower front teeth hit my upper gums behind my front teeth. I had a resorbed tooth root from a previous ortho treatment, so my doc wanted to use Invisalign instead of traditional braces. I had a total of over 30 trays for the Invisalign portion of the treatment, which was successful in that I was able to get about 4 mm of vertical correction. The problem now is getting my rear teeth to grow out to where they correctly touch. Presently I'm in Essix retainers that cover only my front 8 uppers and lowers so the rear molars can grow out. I was in elastics to get certain teeth to move more quickly. However this didn't work well so all of my metal buttons were removed.
I think the nightmare isn't Invisalign, but getting teeth to line up correctly vertically. So far, I've been in treatment for over two years. After my last checkup, my ortho decided it would be best to allow my teeth to grow out on their own, which they are doing slowly, and to continue to wear my retainers full time until the next appointment which is scheduled 6 months from now.
I'm not sure what time of retainers I'll eventually end up with (or when I will finish full time retainer wear!) when my teeth final come out to where they need to be. One problem with vertical corrections is some retainers only keep teeth from moving horizontally. This may be your doc's concern about Hawley retainers. In my case, any tooth grinding will push my rear teeth back where they were originally. My present retainers keep these teeth apart. And because of pre-exiting conditions and other problems with my teeth, I probably can't do much more ortho work if I have another relapse.
I think the nightmare isn't Invisalign, but getting teeth to line up correctly vertically. So far, I've been in treatment for over two years. After my last checkup, my ortho decided it would be best to allow my teeth to grow out on their own, which they are doing slowly, and to continue to wear my retainers full time until the next appointment which is scheduled 6 months from now.
I'm not sure what time of retainers I'll eventually end up with (or when I will finish full time retainer wear!) when my teeth final come out to where they need to be. One problem with vertical corrections is some retainers only keep teeth from moving horizontally. This may be your doc's concern about Hawley retainers. In my case, any tooth grinding will push my rear teeth back where they were originally. My present retainers keep these teeth apart. And because of pre-exiting conditions and other problems with my teeth, I probably can't do much more ortho work if I have another relapse.