A day in the life of the Invisalign patient isn’t all that different from someone not receiving orthodontic care. The patient eats when she wants to eat, she smiles and laughs, and she brushes and flosses her teeth. The main difference is that for about 22 hours of the day, she is wearing a smooth, BPA-free plastic aligner over her teeth. At the beginning of treatment there’s an adjustment phase in which you feel slight discomfort from the pressure of the tray and learn to talk with the aligners. But after you form some new habits and adjust, not much has to change.
Here are your new daily responsibilities:
- You wear your aligners 20-22 hours a day
- You brush and floss your teeth like you would normally, while avoiding the teeth that have brackets.
- You remove your trays before eating, then rinse and replace them
- You clean your trays daily with an Invisalign cleaning kit or lukewarm water.
- You change out your tray around every two weeks.
- You visit with your orthodontist around every six weeks
The most telling way to describe daily life with Invisalign is how patients lives do not change:
- Since you can remove your trays, you can eat almost anything you want. You don’t cancel your date with your partner. You can enjoy a romantic steak dinner and spontaneously kiss and laugh.
- Since you don’t have to fear injuring your mouth on metal brackets you can play soccer, lacrosse or any other contact sport just as competitively as before.
- If you play a wind instrument in the school band, you don’t have to take out the trays. You can also impress everyone with that lilting flute repertoire or alto saxophone solo without any discomfort to your mouth.
- Because you see a fairly quick improvement of your smile without anyone else knowing, you feel more confident, happy, and committed to being yourself.
After you adapt to life with Invisalign, not that much has to change. The more you can be at ease with the process, the more you will enjoy a normal life of talking, laughing and eating what you want. You may even find that as your treatment progresses and you feel more confident with your smile, you will enjoy life more than before you began!
