Metal Mouth Message Board

After 9 months of wearing invisalign my treatment is a failure. 9 lower and 12 upper trays and about 5 months of wearing a rubber band on one side to supposedly pull my top teeth back to midline and my top teeth are still off to the side about 2 mm as they have been since my wisdom teeth came out.

My orthodontist in our final appt today repeated as he's done is the last couple of appts that adult teeth don't always move. From what's I've read here and elsewhere on the internet I reckon the problem is more to do with invisalign not having been an appropriate treatment for the job. Ordinary braces would probably done the job better and faster.

I don't understand how someone who from his before and afters pictures seemed to be an accomplised professional could put me onto this dud treatment and be satisfied to finish with an unsuccessful outcome. I feel like I've been taken for a ride and ripped off when probably with regular orthodontics my treatment would have ended months ago a costed so much less. On top of that I still have 3 $500 payments to go. I susupect that he's he's going to have to wait for them a little longer than he has in the past.

To give your orthodontist a little bit of respect, every treatment is different, and sometimes treatments work, and sometimes they don't. You do sign a "contract" at the beginning of treatment stating this.

Now, being one of those that went through Invisalign with sub par final results, I can also understand your dissatisfaction. Did your ortho offer to get refining trays from Invisalign? Or do braces, either free or at a discount? If not you might ask for those options. Apparently, my ortho offering braces for free is a bit of an abnormality. Most unsuccessful Invisalign patients go for braces at a discount though.

So anyway, yes, Invisalign is an inconsistant technology. It works sometimes and not others. So, basically, what can you do? You agree to the fact that it might not work in the beginning. Which sucks, but health care is almost more of an art than a science, and im sure orthodontia is no exception. Sometimes the recommended, or acceptable, treatments just don't work.

So I guess now is the time to ask yourself if its worth it to you to pay more money to get the results you wanted, or to live with what you have. I'd highly recommend investing the extra money (if you have it of course) in getting your teeth perfect, otherwise your going to regret it a few years down the road.

Hope all of this helps a bit!

Wow that's no fun! I definetly agree with you that Invisalign is limited in pulling teeth down. If the aligner isn't completely perfect its going to be a struggle to get the teeth to move down. I know from experience. If you never had a revision during your treatment definetly tell your ortho you want one. Its free and probably a little tweak in the aligner could really help. Good luck!