Clear Aligners in West Bloomfield, MI

Most patients finish in six months to a year and a half depending on how much movement is needed. Your dentist gives you a timeline specific to your case at the consultation.

For crowding, spacing, and mild to moderate alignment problems, aligners work very well. Some complex bite corrections are still better handled with fixed braces, and we will tell you honestly which category you fall into.

Twenty to twenty two hours a day is the range aligner treatment is generally planned around. They come out to eat and to brush and go straight back in. Wearing them less than that is the single most common reason treatment runs longer than the plan said it would, because the teeth drift back between trays and the sequence stops matching your mouth.

Water yes, anything else no. Hot drinks can warp the plastic, and anything with sugar or acid sits trapped against your teeth for hours once a tray goes back over it, which is how a straightening treatment turns into a cavity. Take them out to eat, rinse or brush before you put them back, and keep the case with you rather than wrapping trays in a napkin, which is how most of them get thrown away.

Yes, and this is the part people underestimate. Teeth have a memory and will drift back toward where they started if nothing holds them, which is why so many adults who wore braces as teenagers are now looking at aligners a second time. A retainer is a small commitment compared with repeating treatment. Your dentist explains the wear schedule when the last tray comes out, and it eases off over time rather than staying at full time forever.

Call us rather than skipping ahead to the next one in the box. Depending on where you are in the series we may have you go back to the previous tray, rewear the current one longer, or take new records. Jumping forward to catch up puts more movement on a tooth than it was planned to take, and that is how a tray stops seating properly at all.

Each new tray feels tight and slightly sore for a day as it starts moving your teeth, then settles. Most patients describe it as pressure rather than pain.

Sometimes, and this is where an in person assessment earns its keep. Mild to moderate bite problems can often be improved with aligners, occasionally with small tooth colored attachments bonded on to give the trays something to push against. Deeper skeletal bite problems, where the jaws themselves sit differently rather than the teeth, are beyond what any aligner moves. Your dentist tells you which of those you have at the consultation, and says so plainly if aligners are not the right tool for your case.

Some plans include an orthodontic benefit that can apply to clear aligners, and many do not. We check yours before treatment is planned, and CareCredit and Cherry cover whatever your plan does not. The quickest way to get a real answer for your own case is a short conversation. Call us at (248) 863-9109 or book online.