You may have avoided having braces put in when you were young because of all the stories you heard about food restrictions, difficulty keeping them clean, painful pokes by wires, and the embarrassment of being a “metal mouth.” Yet you still want straighter teeth, both to improve your smile and to make it easier to clean your teeth properly.

Fortunately, there is an alternative to traditional orthodontic braces, for both adults and kids: Invisalign transparent aligners, which gently push teeth into the positions you want. Instead of ugly and uncomfortable braces that typically take two to three years to get the job done, you can virtually hide the process and get to your smile goals in six months to two years. At Pro Health Dental, cosmetic dentist in Mission Viejo, you will receive a new set of these invisible oral trays from your dentist periodically, which take the treatment to the next step and come into the office to check the fitting as needed.

The best thing about Invisalign is that you take them out before you eat or when you floss and brush your teeth, so there are no more food restrictions and no problems keeping your mouth healthy. You can even wear them when playing sports. But you need to be disciplined about wearing them all the time except when eating or cleaning your teeth, even when you sleep. There are some other best practices for getting the optimum outcome from your Invisalign treatment:

Keep the Aligners Clean
Use dish soap to wash them and rinse with cool water before you put them in after brushing and flossing following breakfast and dinner. Hot water can cause them to change shape and toothpaste can be too abrasive.

Drink Only Plain Water When Wearing Them
Water won’t stain aligners, but even clear sodas will. if you need to drink coffee, tea, wine, or other hot or colored beverages, take them out, then brush your teeth afterwards before putting the aligners back on.

Keep the Aligners in a Safe Place
If you leave them in the car on a hot day, they can begin to change shape. They are almost invisible, so it is easy to set them down and forget where you put them. Keep the aligners in a colored plastic case you carry on you when not wearing them.

Use Removal Tools As Needed
Sometimes the fit is very tight, especially when you get a new set of aligners. There are special small tools that can help you pop them out and put them back in, which you can keep in the carrying case. And they’re more hygienic to use than just your fingers.

Chewy Foods or Stimulants
These are little plastic roles to bite down on for a few minutes each day, which help the aligners to fit more snugly and strengthen your jaw muscles, helping the process.

Let us help you liberate your smile from crooked teeth or fear of braces with Invisalign in Mission Viejo.