WILL THE ALIGNERS AFFECT HOW I SPEAK OR CHEW?
WILL THE ALIGNERS AFFECT HOW I SPEAK OR CHEW?
PAIN/COMFORT From DIGITAL ORTHODONTICS - Solo Edition by Dr. Bak Nguyen
Just like anything new, it will take some time to get used to the aligners. Usually, after a few days, most patients will speak without difficulty. I am saying difficulty because patients are reacting to the pressure and the novelty that they now have 2 layers of plastic in their mouth, one covering the upper arch and one covering the lower arch. That said, they can speak and function as usual, they just do not feel comfortable yet.
Within a few days, most patients will even forget that they have aligners. This is when the aligners are melting into their life. This is more a question of confidence than one of comfort.
On the matter, I always tell my patients to see a male member of the family and to tell them how disappointed they are on the fact that they paid $10,000 (this is not true, but that helps the dramatization) for invisible braces. Today was supposed to be the day they received them and the dental team has lost them.
How do you think a man who cares will react? And that's it! That's the reaction that will prove that they did not notice any difference. I also remind each of my patients to remove the aligners and have a great laugh with their family member. That will boost the confidence factor by much and help my patient to start forgetting about the novelty of having aligners.
That said, this works well on men, not on women. Within 17 years plus of experience, I successfully got only one woman to be fooled by this exercise. You can't fool a woman, that's the moral of the story.
Seriously, within a few days, you will get used to the aligners, and will function normally. About chewing, well, the idea of having aligners was to move your teeth. From one set to the next, you will feel the teeth shifting from one position to the next, sometimes, colliding with their counterparts.
This is temporary and will shift again by the next set. So, about chewing, you will be in transition from now until the end of your treatment. You can eat, you can chew, but your occlusion (the way your teeth close on one another) is changing week after week. That said, every one of my patients ate without difficulty throughout their treatment.