After years of deliberation I have decided to go ahead with Clear braces!
I went for an initial consultation in November where the orthodontist offered me the choice of Invisalign or Clearstep, estimating that the treatment would take 9 months. I asked him what the differences were between them and insisted that they were exactly the same, except Clearstep was a UK based company and was roughly 25% cheaper (£1500-2000 cheaper in my case). I went away and did my own research on them but could hardly find anything on the net about Clearstep. In the end I opted to put my trust in the orthodontist and took the cheaper option of Clearstep.
I went back and he did all my xrays, moulds, photographs...etc and he sent them off to Clearstep. When my treatment plan came back from the lab I was told that it would take 18 months, not 9, and I would need two of my upper pre-molars extracted.
The price also jumped up to £4500 from £2000-2500!!! I was shocked to say the least and so went away to think about it.After more lengthy discussions with my ortho I decide to go ahead with it. He cut a deal with Clearstep so that I would only have to pay £3500 instead of the full amount, since he initially estimated it would only take 9 months. I had my two teeth removed and he ordered my aligners. I received the first box on Friday (04/02) and whilst I was at the dentist I had some bite raisers fitted (?!). They didn't explain to me exactly what these were for but they make it very difficult to eat as they limit the contact points between the arches. Imagine what it would be like to eat with only 2 back teeth and you'll get the idea! Besides that the actual aligners are excellent, they are very easy to insert/remove and nobody has noticed that I have them in. I cannot provide a comparison to Invisalign but from what I've seen on the net I'd say they are AS invisible or more so! I've included some photos below to illustrate...
The pacakge:
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Aligner on mould:
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Aligner off mould:
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With Aligner:
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Without Aligner:
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I struggled to find any kind of comparison between Invisalign and Clearstep on the web so I hope this will help some people. From what I've learnt so far it appears that Clearstep use a variety of "invisible" orthodontics in order to achieve the best results. Instead of JUST using clear aligners like Invisalign do. Since I've had teeth extracted I will need to have some kind of closing screw fitted to close the gaps. I'm going to discuss this with my ortho when I get to that stage, as he also mentioned having "sectional fixed braces" fitted which I didn't like the sound of. After all, I opted for Clearstep because I wanted to correct my teeth without having traditional braces fitted. We'll see how that goes though!
If you have any questions please ask!
