hi it's dr amanda with straight smile solutions street smile solutions.com and today we're
going to talk about case selection for aligners versus braces which ones are better for each one
and if you ask this question to an orthodontist you're going to get a different answer from every
single orthodontist out there so i'm going to give you my answer what works well in my hands
and of course i think a lot of general dentists and also a lot of patients are confused
because i do have a patient facing a facebook group that i don't benefit from this it's just
patients keep asking me questions so i had to put them someplace you know so they had a place to ask
questions right where doctors can answer them or the community can answer them but this is super
common they're like i go to one orthodontist they say i have to have braces i go to another one they
say invisalign's fine it'll turn out just the same what's what's this truths what's the truth
right what's right well it depends on what works in the doctor's hands there are doctors that are
out there that are amazing with invisalign and can get the exact same outcome on almost every case
but it takes experience and there are doctors out there that are better with braces so my suggestion
is to find someone who's confident and of course you know a good question to ask and i have some
blogs about this is you know are you going to do this as a comprehensive case are you going
to stick with me until it's perfect because what a lot of doctors do and what a lot of patients
get upset about is that they'll do a light or a go or a moderate or an express case and they
won't tell the patient and then they only get one or no refinement and then when they don't
get what they want then they just throw their hands out and say sorry this is all i can do
so you want to make sure that that orthodontist has experience they're very confident they can
treat your case and that they will let you keep going with the invisalign until you're satisfied
you and them but most importantly you're satisfied and they're not going to just cut you off
and that is the question to ask and if they are like that then you know and you can even
ask i mean you can ask to see examples to see cases just because they're a diamond or
platinum provider doesn't necessarily mean they're experienced there's a lot of shady stuff that goes
on and i always laugh when patients say well my doctor's platinum or whatever or diamond so what
because there's a lot of shady stuff that goes on where doctors will pool with other doctors
um in a big group and they'll run all the cases through their one accounts that they look better
than they are that doesn't mean they have any experience that doesn't mean they're any better it
just means that they're they're kind of shady but there's plenty of orthodontists that are honestly
doing all them themselves and that's a different story right so i think that's you would never know
i mean you're not gonna know that answer to that question so i think it really depends on
and another good question is what percentage of your cases are invisalign versus braces if
they're an orthodontist that's a good question to ask too um it's pretty much impossible for a
general dentist to be a diamond provider so i don't think there's any way you get that kind
of volume unless you're in a gigantic dsl where they're pooling and again the question is well
who's doing my clint check is a great question to ask because a lot of these ones where they're
doing pooling someone else is doing your clint jack which is your setup your treatment plan who's
not even a doctor who's treating you so that's a question to ask who is doing my clinch check
and can i see my clinch hack before i approve and put any money down on this that is an extremely
important question if they're not willing to let you see the clint check before you put money down
walk away from this doctor because that is not the right doctor for you because that means that
they don't have confidence in what they do in my opinion because any orthodontist out there
would say heck yeah you can see the clint check no problem i have confidence in what i'm gonna do i'm
gonna show it to you i'm gonna explain it to you if they're not willing to do that do not see that
doctor and that's something i'm going to keep saying a hundred times because it does not cost
any money for the doctor to do the clinchack there's if they tell you they're doing it does
cost them money they're lying okay it does not it costs nothing so they can come in they can do
it yes it takes the doctor a little bit of time so a lot of doctors would like to have a deposit
before they do it but you know what orthodontists do this all the time they'll do the clint checks
they'll let you see it if you ask and then you can start the case that way you can compare
a variety of different clint checks and if doctors telling you they cannot email you the clint chuck
they're lying that means they either don't know how to do it or they're flat out lying because
there is a way to do it and i have videos on how to do it it changes all the time but yes you can
you can you can send a secure hipaa compliant email where the patient can view their clin check
it does not cost them anything you should be able to do that either come in and look at it in person
some doctors don't feel comfortable sending it because they want to explain it to you
so i get that but you need to be willing to come in and look at it so be stubborn on that and if
that doctor is not being flexible about that please go find a different doctor but anyways
what kind of cases are better for invisalign than braces and what kind of paces are better
for braces than invisalign so for me 95 percent of the cases it's all about the same you know
if it's a phase one which is kids age six seven eight i know that invisalign does have a product
however it's extremely overpriced in my opinion um i'm willing to do a liners on a patient but i may
not want to do invisalign if you really want it i'll do it but i'm going to charge a lot because
they charge us a lot and it's really unnecessary in my opinion but for teens sure a few cases
might be easier in braces one of them would be impacted canines definitely a lot easier in braces
really really really deep bite cases sometimes are better or i might use an auxiliary appliance we
might do something else first and then go into the invisalign same thing with same thing for patients
with crossbites i might use an expander first and then go into invisalign but if you're willing to
try a different appliance first it might make the treatment take a little bit longer because
we can't do them at the same time same thing if you have an anterior open bite or if you have
a habit like a tongue thrust or a thumb sucking habit it's going to be quicker in braces because
i can do them same time but invisalign sure i'll treat your invisalign let's just do the habit part
first and then we'll do the invisalign so that's fine um another one that's trickier and invisalign
would be an impacted second molar any type of impaction um back to second molars impacted teeth
way faster in braces than invisalign but if you're willing to have a few braces put on
first and we fix that part then we can finish in invisalign so you get what i mean there are some
cases that i think are better than invisalign than embraces and a lot of those would be um
kind of open bite cases assuming there's no habit or tongue thrust involved i think is better
and other ones now if the patient still has baby teeth any baby teeth or if the
12 year molars are in i'll usually sometimes i'll start invisalign but i'll usually say let's wait
you know um or we can do an expander or something else first because if you've got a lot of baby
teeth in and i know my daughter's like the same way she has two left and it's a really hard case
so we just got started i get five years to do it so i was like i don't care i'll just do a bunch
of refinements on her it doesn't bother me but it is it does take a lot more time whereas with
braces it's not a big deal you can just plop the brace on as the tooth comes up so it might
take a little bit longer but in general you can get the same outcome in the right hand so look
for the doctor who's confident who's willing to let you see the clinchuck all right thanks