Getting perfectly aligned teeth along with a beautiful smile makes you look good, boosts confidence, and helps you perform better in both personal and professional spaces. While metal braces have been the most common and traditional means for teeth-straightening for decades, the use of clear aligners and retainers has become the preferred choice in recent years. You can even straighten your teeth at home with these options without much hassle. Read on to know more…

Clear aligners

Clear aligners are transparent plastic trays that are custom-made to slip onto your teeth. They gently apply pressure on the teeth from either direction and push them to the desired position. You wear a series of aligners, replacing each set with a new one every week. Once the teeth have been realigned, you need to follow up the treatment by wearing retainers to keep the teeth from moving back to their original position. Clear aligners can be easily removed, are almost painless, and are known to be effective for treating misaligned and crooked teeth. If you are trying to straighten your teeth at home, you can try the following two options:

• Get doctor-supervised clear aligners: In this case, you need to visit the orthodontist only once for the diagnosis. All the remaining procedures are carried out remotely. The aligners are shipped and you can start wearing them one set at a time and see the change in your teeth alignment. The treatment is followed up through apps and sensors and, like in the case of OrthoFX, experienced customer service helps you get your teeth straightened from the comforts of your home.

• Get DIY clear aligners: If visiting an orthodontist is not possible for you, then go for DIY clear aligners. Providers of this kind of aligners send you at-home diagnostic kits, which can be used to take impressions of your teeth and then send them back. The provider evaluates the type of alignment issue and ships you a series of custom-made clear aligners for the entire treatment tenure. You can wear them following the guidelines provided by the online clear aligner provider and get a straight set of teeth.

However, using the second option of DIY clear aligners might not bring in the desired results in each case. There have been incidents where the aligners that were sent did not do the job with perfection and the teeth needed more time to get straightened. To avoid any such situation, it is always advisable to seek a professional opinion before going ahead with the treatment.