Dr. Mike Malone’s Blog

I am getting married a year from now, and searching for “The Dress” was an eye-opening experience, and not in a good way. After a while, all I could see in the mirror was my crooked, crowded teeth! I really want to look and feel my best for my wedding day. I had a consultation with an orthodontist, and she told me that straightening my teeth with braces will take at least two years. I don’t have that kind of time! Is there a faster way to have a really beautiful smile for my wedding day?
–Kimberly in Bangor, ME

Dear Kimberly,

If you have crowded, crooked teeth, there are a couple of different ways you CAN have a beautiful smile in just a few months, but only if you consult the right professional. You need to talk to an expert cosmetic dentist, not an orthodontist. An expert cosmetic dentist (especially one accredited by the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry) will be able to offer you options that a traditionally trained orthodontist is not qualified to provide.

Invisalign braces can straighten your teeth in six to nine months, depending on the degree of crowding. Extremely crowded teeth might take a little longer, but treatment with Invisalign braces rarely takes more than a year. An added bonus to using Invisalign is that even if your treatment is not completely finished by the day of your wedding, the aligner can simply be removed for the big day and pictures. If your teeth are otherwise intact and attractive, Invisalign might be the way to go.

An even faster option is to go with porcelain veneers, but here especially you must be very careful about choosing the right dentist. Many dentists have the technical skill to place the veneers, but they lack the artistic sense to make your smile truly beautiful and natural. If your teeth are discolored or misshapen, porcelain veneers can give you a really gorgeous wedding day smile quite quickly.

The bottom line is that you really should have the advice of an expert cosmetic dentist that has experience with both treatment types before you make any decisions. Choose your dentist very carefully, and then you know you can count on their advice to be sound.

Good luck, and congratulations on your wedding.

I am just putting on my last Invisalign aligner. By the way, they sure do look good. However, on its package is written “Please check the invisalign website for information regarding reproximation.” This concerns me. I looked up reproximation online. I do not have crowding at all. Do you know if this is printed on everyone’s last aligner?
- Janice from New Jersey

Janice,
No, this isn’t printed on everyone’s last aligner package. Something seems not right about this message. I wonder if it was an error.

Reproximation is shaving of the sides of teeth. If you have a little crowding, but not enough to justify taking out one or two teeth, then we just shave a little off the sides of several teeth to get more space so that the teeth can be all lined up. But this is either done even before impressions are taken, in other words, the very first thing after the diagnostic work is done for the Invisalign. Or it is done very early in the treatment, during the wearing of the first few sets of aligners.

I’d ask your dentist if he or she knows anything about this comment. But I suspect that it is just an error by the Invisalign people - that they used this package for your aligners and didn’t realize it had that comment on it.

And we’re glad to hear that Invisalign has worked so well for you. There is an extremely high rate of patient satisfaction with Invisalign. And we just love doing this treatment for people.

Dr. Mike Malone is a Lafayette Louisiana cosmetic dentist. Click the link to learn more about our office.

Click here to learn more about our Invisalign services, to know if this would work for you. You may also want to read about fixing crooked teeth without braces.

I have had braces in the past and now have stains on my teeth. Can they be whitened either professionally or by in-store products, or will this harm my teeth? Some people have said that the teeth are now softer because of the braces. I realize that I probably caused this by not following through with a better cleaning process while I had the braces, but, now would like to correct the problem. Do the whitening products on the market cause problems with people who have had braces?
- Kathy from Oregon

Kathy,
I am guessing that your stains are uneven. Usually the stains that your teeth get after braces are spots where decay started around the brackets. They start out turning white and then become brown. And they’re in spots.

Bleaching is not the correct treatment for spots. It will make them look worse. Because, while it will whiten the spots a little, it whitens the unspotted parts of the teeth more. So the spots become more prominent. Bleaching is for dark teeth that are evenly dark.

What you need for your spots is tooth bonding. You need a cosmetic dentist who will remove the dark spots and then cover them over with composite bonding material. That will “erase” them and bring back your beautiful smile.

If you want to bleach, a Zoom whitening treatment before doing the bonding will make the white parts of your teeth whiter, and then the bonding material can be a lighter color. But you will need to do the tooth bonding - you can’t get around that.

One of the advantages of Invisalign invisible braces is that you don’t ever get this spotting of the teeth. The spotting comes when you don’t get your teeth clean after eating, and food debris collects around the brackets, and then the enamel starts to break down because the decay process starts around the brackets. With Invisalign, you can remove the aligners to eat and to clean your teeth. There are no brackets to collect food.

Dr. Malone,
What is the best procedure that can be done to a front tooth that is out of line with the other ones, besides using braces?
- Mark in New York

Mark,
There are two main ways that we would usually use to fix your smile if you have one tooth that is out of alignment, without using braces. And there is another possible way that could sometimes be used.

The fastest way, and this can be done in just a couple of main appointments, is to use porcelain veneers. Veneers are placed over your teeth. Usually the teeth are shaved just a little bit first, about the thickness of a fingernail, so that they don’t end up being too thick once the veneers are on. Even if your teeth are pretty badly out of line, they can be made to look perfectly straight. A good illustration is the patient, Bea, in our smile gallery. She had crooked teeth that were corrected with porcelain veneers.

The second major way is with Invisalign. While these are called “invisible braces,” they’re not really braces, in that metal brackets aren’t put on your teeth. And they’re twice as fast as metal braces. We use a series of clear plastic aligners that you snap in, and they push your teeth into the correct positions.

And if you have, say, just one tooth that is out of alignment, some people like us to use direct tooth bonding on just the one tooth that is out of line. This can look great when it’s done, but the bonding material isn’t nearly as durable as porcelain, and it tends to pick up stain over time.