During a YouTube binge, an acquaintance come across this video by a young woman called Rosie Posie. She’s been documenting her experience and treatment with Smile Care Club. In one of her videos, posted directly below, you see her struggling to get her aligners in. It takes quite a while.

Eventually, after twenty mintues of trying to put them in, she gives up. In a follow-up video, the problem was discovered and resolved. Smile Direct Club inadvertantly mixed up her aligners giving her ones that were a month ahead of where she really was in her treatment.

To give you an idea of how serious this is from a medical standpoint, it would be like a surgeon accidentally doing surgery on the wrong body part.

The stress put on her teeth from being a month ahead and then going back to an earlier treatment often leads to root resorption. This can lead to premature tooth loss. It would be interesting to look at before and after x-rays of her teeth roots as a result of this mistake.

Patient Floundering

Here lies one of the big problems with services such as Smile Direct Club. Patients are left to flounder. If it weren’t for the fact that she’d been documenting her treatment on YouTube and it caught the attention of Smile Direct Club, she likely would have been left trying to shove these on every day, causing serious ireparable damage.

Many people are attracted to these mail order services because of their discounted prices. What makes their prices so low is you do not have a dentist you see regularly that check on your treatment. Bodies are unique. Because of that, even when someone is given the correct aligners, the treatment may not respond as it was supposed to. That is one of the important ways being under the care of a dentist is important. Early intervention in these cases can save the treatment and the patient’s teeth.

Affording Invisalign

If you want to safely straighten your teeth, I recommend Invisalign. It has one of the highest patient satisfaction rates of any treatment. If the cost makes you feel you could more quickly get your teeth straightened with a mail order service, consider talking to your dentist.

Most dentists are willing to work with patients under financial strain. Some have in-house payment plans that will allow you to pay things out as you go. Almost all dentists work through Care Credit. This is a medical payment service that pays for your procedure, and allows you to pay them back with extraordinarily reasonable interest rates.

A Hidden Benefit with Invisalign

There is a way to “double-up” your treatment in a way that saves you a lot of money while giving you a mini smile makeover. Because your aligners are custom fit and you are under the care of a dentist, your dentist is able to provide you with the professional teeth whitening gel that you can wear in your aligners as you straighten your teeth. This enables you to whiten while you straighten.

This blog is brought to you by Lafayette Dentist Dr. Emily Foreman.