How Many Hours w/o Invisalign is "Bad"?

[Spaghettini]

Another piece of advice... get denture cleaner tablets (I get them from the supermarket in the toothpaste section) and drop your trays in a cup with warmish/hot water with the tablet for the time the trays are not in your mouth... it will give them a good preliminary clean (you'll need to brush them as well before putting them back in your mouth) and they will preserve longer and not stain. Never drink coffee or tea with them in your mouth, even with a straw. It is unhygienic, will give you bad breath and will discolour your aligners (and maybe the nodules and your teeth as well). Hope this helps

[thenorw]

I keep it in for about 18 hours a day, less or more it all depends on what I am doing that day. On sundays I keep them in for 22 hours, I just take it out when eating. But if I am going out I might only have it in for only 15-16 hours a day.

[DrJasonKTam]

The amount of minimum time is going to depend on the type of movement, amount of movement, and individual physiology. What I can tell you anecdotally after working with hundreds of patients annually, is that wearing aligners for around 18 hours per day is generally not going to allow the movements to fully express. The sweet spot is around 20-22 hours per day. It may seem like aligners are fitting properly, even with less wear, but over the course of missing wear-time, several aligners later, they may suddenly stop fitting. Imagine missing even just 5% off adequate wear for 10 aligners. Adding up the missed movements, you end up with a fairly significant discrepancy in missed movements. Hope that helps!

[Patterned919]

I was a little worried about this if I end up getting Invisalign since I'm a slow eater and I heard brushing immediately after eating is bad...so if I take 45 minutes to eat each meal, 3 meals that's over 2 hours already. Then I wait 30 minutes before brushing... guess I'll have to eat faster or just eat twice a day instead.