HOW DOES ALIGNER WORKS?
HOW DOES ALIGNER WORKS? HOW DOES ALIGNERS STRAIGHT MY TEETH?
DEFINITION From DIGITAL ORTHODONTICS - Solo Edition by Dr. Bak Nguyen
You start with a 3D scan as a digital impression of your mouth. An older technic is to scan a conventional dental impression. That practice is less and less used since the 3D scan is much more reliable and precise. From that scan, a 3D model of your mouth is made.
The doctors and the dental technicians are moving your digital teeth and reshaping your mouth from that 3D model. So all of the planning happened outside of your mouth, while you are not even there.
Placing your teeth one by one and carefully considering the inter-relationship of your teeth through every single phase of treatment, a treatment plan is then generated. The blueprint is called a clincheck, with the leading brand, Invisalign.
Then it is custom to meet with the patients and to show them the simulated virtual treatment on a computer screen prior to the beginning of the actual treatment. Once approved by all parties, a sequence of clear aligners are then 3D printed and shipped to the attending dentist's office for the beginning of the process.
Changing from one aligner to the next (usually worn between 7 to 14 days in average), you are executing the treatment plan, a single mold at a time, moving your teeth from A to B to, eventually Z.
The mechanics and biology behind the treatment are the mechanism of bone formation and bone resorption. Under pressure, the body will produce hormones to resorb (destroy) the bone until the pressure is released. After that initial hormonal reaction, your body will then start the bone formation process where it detects tension.
Within 2 different phases, the body is remolding itself around the new teeth position within the aligners. In other words, we are using the tooth as leverage to reshape in 2 steps the bone socket, changing slowly the axis of emergence of the tooth. This is how both conventional braces and the new clear aligners are aligning teeth.
The use of plastic aligners or metal brackets and wires is a decision between the attending and his or her patient. The physiology and mechanics are the same. But the clear aligners still have an edge, which is to apply the maximum force on the teeth without the body responding by an equal and opposite force.
No matter the choice of appliances, the body will need the time to regenerate the bone around the teeth, making a minimum of wearing time mandatory.
It is also important to understand that this is a hormonal response. Hormonal responses are all-or-nothing reactions. So either your body is creating bone or either it is destroying it. The cycles will follow one after the next, making it mandatory to give your body enough time to go through both sequences.