hey it's dr amanda from straight smile solutions www.straightsmilesolutions.com and
today i want to talk to you a little bit more about aligner cases
a liner storage and how to keep on track with your clear
aligners i found this case and i this kind of whole smart case
thing has been kind of popular lately so i just wanted to go over this case i
found at um amazon i think it's about
70 that seems kind of expensive the case is gigantoid
like it's like way too big to put in my pocket way too big to put in my purse
so for me this makes zero sense um i would never use this
for me a case needs to be teeny tiny small um
a mirror would be nice to have in a case i need to be able to fit my chewie's in
it and that's about it so it should be about maybe
three inches in diameter max circle would be nice because i think square was
space uh even less you could have a super
teeny tiny because you need to put it in your
pocket it needs to be way smaller than your phone right
or a case that goes on your phone would be cool you know that kind of attaches
to the back of your phone case it's an idea too but like with a pop
socket just an idea but anyways um
the reason for this case is that you're gonna pair it with an app that you can
download from the app store and it's gonna let you know when you've
had your aligners out for too long and how long you've been wearing them
so this goes back to the whole 30 minute rule you're a liner should never be out
of your mouth more than 30 minutes at a time and maximum two hours a day so
that means you have them out four times during the day to eat drink
brush whatever you need to do um if you have them out for more than 30
minutes you're going to start going down the slippery slope of relapse
that's the kind of an average and that means that
your cells in your bone are getting confused because they're
there's certain cells that are for movement and for building bone and
there's certain cells that are for breaking down bone
and if you're constantly switching back and forth wearing them not wearing i'm
wearing them not wearing them you're not actually moving all you're
doing is causing discomfort because the teeth aren't moving in a
positive direction if anything they're relapsing
so this is why people who don't wear them as consistently 22 hours a day
leaving them out for only 30 minutes at a time are going to
see a lot more discomfort and then they're also going to see less
optimal outcomes they're not going to see the progress
they're expecting um that 30 minute thing is a big deal so it
does really require a lifestyle change no you can't have them out in the car
why you drink coffee for you know sip coffee for an hour or two that
you just can't do that it's like more of a chug coffee thing
um if your coffee's totally has no milk no sugar
theoretically you can drink it iced coffee with a straw
but um they're still going to stain so i would brush them afterwards
but i mean that you could do or you could drink water with a straw
you know anything that has no sugar no flavor no calories of any side you
could drink that was clear you could drink
you know with a straw or sip like water but you wouldn't want to drink ice water
you wouldn't want to drink diet coke that'll really really really stain it
so it's a little bit of a lifestyle change like i said but
if you're gonna do aligners you might as well do it correctly so you get the best
outcomes i think that's the main thing and i think a lot of times
patients think they can fool us they can trick us but what's going to happen is
you're going to go off track and if you go off track
now we have two options we can either backtrack which is where and we'll go
over that in another video i've got some already
but that's where you bring in all your old aligners when we find the one that
fits again and then we start over you know like
from where you were so let's say you think you're on seven but you're really
on four so we're gonna go back to four and
start again um that's actually better than even
stopping and re-scanning because the stopping rescanning now we're waiting
three four five six seven eight weeks for the new aligners to come in
well now your your bone and your teeth are in the healing phase and they think
they're done so they're starting to create the solid bone
and now you're going to go back in eight weeks and start the moving phase again
and that's not healthy for your teeth that causes issues with
long term with the roots and stuff like that so we would much rather
that you stay on track and or backtrack than do a revision refinement or
mid-course correction if possible so anyways all right hopefully that was
helpful verbiage thank you so much