Understanding How Clear Aligners Straighten Your Teeth

Aligners are the modern alternative to braces. It uses thin, transparent plastic shells to start shifting teeth to the correct position. Instead of fixed braces, aligners are removable and are changed every 7 to 14 days. They look like dental bleaching trays but function as braces to straighten your teeth. Also, the difference is that you can Straighten teeth from home.

Using virtual models of your teeth, a series of aligners are created to gradually straighten them. Depending on the severity of your dental alignment problem, patients receive as little as 10 or up to 50 aligners for every series. To see noticeable results, it will require one to three series of aligners. The range depends on your bite, how consistently you wear your aligners, and how resistant your jaw bone is to movement.

How Aligners “Align” Your Teeth

Aligners work by gently pressing on your teeth to make small movements. That pressure moves to your jaws or through your roots. The sockets in your jawbone move in response to pressures, and your teeth will then follow. Because the changes and differences between aligners are small, the treatment is gentle and more comfortable than metal braces. Aligners must be worn for 22 hours each day to be effective. This allows more time for eating, brushing, and flossing.

Parts That Make Clear Aligners Work

The aligner trays don’t work alone to help straighten your teeth or correct dental problems. Clear aligner therapy also has a few other elements. To compensate for the lack of a permanent connection between aligners and teeth, we use little pressure points known as attachments.

• These are tooth-colored bumps applied during treatments. Their placement and shape will be determined by the movement needed for correction. Attachments help straighten your teeth by applying pressure from the aligners.

• Elastics are used to enable upper over lower tooth shifting. Elastics are fastened to aligner slots or little buttons on the teeth. If your teeth may not be perfectly aligned, minor reshaping or resizing can help here.

A lot of people are interested to try clear aligners after hearing that even the most popular celebrities are now using them too. Billie Eilish for example is just one of them. She even mentioned a clear aligner brand in one of her songs. That is why adolescents and adults alike are now interested to give it a try too after seeing impressive results.