In the modern age it’s easy to be swayed by the convenience factor. Life is busy. Whether it’s kids, our jobs, seeing friends and family, it always feels like something is pulling us in a new direction all the time. Being busy leads us to seek out fast and easy choices when taking care of other needs. Straightening our teeth is one area where the convenient option is usually not the best option.
What Are Mail-order Aligners?
Mail-order aligners are the latest fad in Australia. Inspired by the booming success of companies in the USA, Asia and other overseas countries, Australia now offers to direct mail this product to their customers. Aligners are a relatively new product provided by dentists worldwide. They allow patients to straighten their teeth without using more invasive solutions like braces. What is initially attractive about aligners is that they are clear. When worn in a patient’s mouth, they are harder to notice which makes the transition to straighter teeth more comfortable psychologically.
Mail-order aligners rely on the patient having a DIY approach to their teeth straightening. Whilst often times the fine print suggests seeking the opinion of a dentist, providers of mail-order aligners do not require a patient to actually seek medical advice. Just purchase an impression kit off the internet, bite down for a couple of minutes and $2500 later you have a course of clear aligners coming to your home.
Advanced gingivitis with red, very swollen gums which can occur with wearing clear aligners on top of unhealthy gum tissue and poor oral hygiene
Why Are People Using Mail-order Aligners?
There are two main aspects that attract patients to these types of products. The first is price. Usually if you visit a dentist to obtain aligners you’ll be paying anywhere from $6,000 to over $10,000. That’s without factoring in check up prices or any additional dental work that may be required to make sure your dental health is good and your mouth is suitable for clear aligners to be used.
The second major factor in their popularity is convenience. Making an appointment with the dentist requires time off work, or at least time out of our already busy schedule to sit down with a dentist. You may not even be able to organise your aligners right away and could need a few more dental visits over the next few months before you are ready for aligners. With everything keeping us so busy it’s attractive to think, “maybe I can afford to skip all that and just do the work myself to save the time and money”.
This is how these companies suck us in to potentially making one of the worst decisions for our overall dental health.
What Can Go Wrong with Mail-order Aligners?
In short, a lot. If you choose to get mail-order aligners, there are all the risks associated with using clear aligners without medical advice from a dentist or orthodontist. Those are plentiful. Are aligners appropriate for my condition? Is my mouth healthy enough to proceed with aligner treatment? You should not be answering these questions yourself. Only a dental professional can answer these questions for you. There are also additional risks to you as a consumer as you are at the mercy of the company you deal with and their customer service, processes for sale and delivery of your treatment. Are they proactive with aftercare support or lose interest in you after your lump sum purchase? These risks are already being reported in the media even though companies providing DIY aligners are relatively new to Australia.
Orthodontists around Australia are discouraging people from using products like mail-order aligners for their teeth straightening.
How Can Mail-order Aligners Damage My Teeth and Gums?
Without a dentist first checking your teeth and gums, and doing any necessary treatment to get your mouth healthy, you shouldn’t be having any orthodontic treatment, aligners included. Small dental problems can become very severe dental problems when trapped under aligners for a long period of time. For example, wearing aligners over unhealthy teeth and gums covered with plaque and calculus can further trap bacteria and cause tooth decay and gum disease.
Having aligners made on DIY impressions made from an at-home mould kit simply isn’t accurate enough. Moving teeth with aligners takes a sequence of fine movements produced by one aligner after another. Aligners made from inaccurate impressions leads to inaccurate movements of the teeth and a poor teeth straightening result. Worse still, pushing teeth the wrong way or the wrong amount can cause them to chip, become loose or be painful.
During your aligner treatment things may not go according to the original plan. Everyone’s teeth responds differently. Teeth may move more or less than originally anticipated at any point during treatment and this can cause alignment issues throughout the rest of treatment. This is the kind of issue that causes small gaps to remain after an aligner course and even small overlaps. Supervision by a dental professional throughout the course of treatment is necessary to ensure each movement is occurring with each aligner.
How Can Mail-order Aligners Affect My Treatment Plan?
Typically treatment plans for clear aligners require you to use a new set of aligners every two weeks. So what happens if you don’t receive your next aligners on time due to a postage error or delay? Besides a longer treatment time to finish the whole course, there is the risk of your teeth moving backwards while waiting for more aligners.
Many of these mail-order aligner providers skip over the importance of retainers. Did you know that once you straighten your teeth with aligners you will need to use retainers for the rest of your life to keep your teeth straight? That’s something you probably won’t clearly notice if you’re looking at purchasing mail-order aligners, but you will find out during the course of treatment when they try to sell you new retainers.
In the above review of a US based provider of mail-order aligners, this customer talks about how they tried to order a new set of retainers a month before their treatment plan ended, the issues she had with that process and the impact that had on her end result.
While she admits that there were problems with her treatment plan, she acknowledges that she would still use the mail-order aligner products in the future simply because of the thousands of dollars she saved even though she did not get a perfect result.
This highlights the issue of aligner costs forcing people to consider these potentially unsafe options.
What Should I know Before I Use Clear Aligners?
Speaking from a dental point of view, did you know?:
- You need to wear your aligners at least 22 hours per day
- You need to wear each aligner for at least two weeks
- You cannot eat or drink while wearing clear aligners
- Every time you take your aligners out to eat and drink, you should brush and floss before putting the aligners back in
- You should not chew chewing gum while wearing aligners
- Smoking cigarettes during clear aligner treatment is discouraged as they will stain or discolour your aligners
- There may be some discomfort when you put in a new set of aligners for the first few days
- There may be an adjustment period before you a comfortable talking clearly when starting clear aligner treatment
- You must wear retainers forever after aligner treatment to hold your teeth in the corrected positions
- You should have your teeth checked and cleaned by a dentist before clear aligners and have any treatment to get your mouth healthy completed if required before starting clear aligners
- You should have your teeth cleaned every 6 months by a dentist during clear aligner treatment
- You should get clear aligners from a dentist or orthodontist to avoid the risks of problems with DIY, mail-order clear aligners
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