The days are long gone when traditional metal braces were the only smile-straightening choice for your teen. Now there are a plethora of options, and that makes it great for young patients, allowing their treatment to be even more highly customized.
The Expressions in Dentistry team is dedicated to helping you find the orthodontic solution that’s right for your teen, taking into account the specific correction they need, as well as their usually busy lifestyles.
In Dr. Thomas Ludlow, Dr. Peter Rubenstein, and Dr. Saharnaz Tehranchi, you have dental professionals who care for your teen with the expertise gained from years of valuable experience and compassion. It’s an unbeatable combination.
We proudly offer two effective treatments, Invisalign® and FastBraces®, and we’re versed in discussing which may be better for your child. After learning how each works to beautify their smile, it’s good to compare them, as the things that set one apart from another will help you and your teen come to a good decision.
Invisalign treatment doesn’t involve wearing braces. Instead, your teen wears custom-made transparent plastic aligners that gradually shift the teeth to where they should be, correcting diverse problems. Over the course of your teen’s treatment, their aligner trays are swapped out about every two weeks.
Creating customized trays is a high-tech process in which we make an impression of your child’s teeth, a digital image of them, and finally a 3D version to help us project how their teeth will shift during treatment. We then create your teen’s precisely customized aligners.
You don’t wear trays on the surfaces of your teeth, as with braces, as much as over them. The trays envelop the teeth. Also unlike braces, Invisalign trays are removable when your teen eats and brushes their teeth, so they end up wearing them from 20-22 hours per day. On average, Invisalign treatment takes anywhere from 12-18 months to complete.
Treatment with FastBraces gives patients the best answer possible when it comes to the age-old but understandable question: How long until my braces can come off? We know the waiting can be hard, but the reward of a perfect smile is unequaled.
FastBraces are still braces, but with a key difference: Instead of a treatment timeline of anywhere between one to three years — and sometimes longer — FastBraces treatment usually lasts an unbelievably brief 100 days, give or take. That’s only a little over three months!
The other amazing thing about FastBraces is that treatment isn’t painful, and we all know that getting traditional braces means an uncomfortable “breaking in” period, as well as tightening appointments, after which it may take several days to feel comfortable again.
FastBraces consist of traditional braces components, like arches and wires, that actually move the roots and crowns of your teen’s teeth. However, with FastBraces, the arches are triangularly shaped and differ from those of traditional braces, and there aren’t any elastic bands used.
It really isn’t about the superiority of one teeth-straightening method over another, it’s about which treatment offers your teen the optimal path to a stunning smile.
Invisalign is loved as a treatment because it’s:
FastBraces have gained fans because of:
Both treatments target and solve many problems, from bite issues to crowded teeth and gaps between teeth.
The bottom line is that Invisalign and FastBraces are each great choices, but your teen’s preferences may point you toward one treatment over another, as well as reviewing the pros and cons of both methods with your dentist.
If the most important thing to your teen is getting treatment over with ASAP, FastBraces may be the way to go. Ditto if they don’t have the time or inclination to comply with the removal and replacement of Invisalign during meals and when cleaning their teeth.
Invisalign might be the way for a teen to go if their appearance is paramount, because they’re virtually invisible — as their name suggests. And even though FastBraces’ overall treatment time is shorter, your teen may not want to spend the time necessary to carefully check to see if food is caught behind the brackets and remove it. We’re proud that Dr. Ludlow is a Senior Master-level FastBraces provider.
Call our office at 916-235-6610 to schedule an appointment with a member of our team to help you and your teen decide which treatment is better for them, or use our online booking tool.
