I have to let you know that this is a sponsored post. But that’s okay because I’d still think that Invisalign was pretty awesome even if it wasn’t.

Once upon a time… a long, long time ago in a far off distant place I was a teen. I was young, naive, beautiful, still skinny because I hadn’t given birth multiple times, and I was graced with crooked teeth and a mouth that was to narrow.

So like any good parent mine took me to the dentist and then to the orthodontist and the torture fun began. My teeth and mouth were poked and prodded while the man behind the instrument spoke to the lady taking meticulous notes. No sooner had that ended and they brought out a bowl and started mixing and stirring up a strange concoction that looked like really soft play dough. The goop was slopped into a tray which was unkindly placed in my mouth where the goop squished and oozed around my teeth and was so very close to making me gag. Hold it in place for a few moments more is what they told me but those moments were never ending. Relief finally came when they took it out and showed me an the impression my crooked teeth had left.

I was on the road to being a brace face.

This story is similar to so many of you isn’t it? That’s because it’s not a story… it’s real life. It’s braces in the 80’s!

(Head gear, straight talk, and 80’s style hair & braces were all part of the fun with friends last week)

Here’s something pretty funny. So at one point in my life I thought that braces were pretty cool and my friends and I would even go so far as to pretend we had braces with tin foil or our gum. Silly kids… little did we know that braces weren’t half as fun!

Every month my dad would take me to the orthodontist where I would sit in the chair while they smiled at my discomfort and sometimes sheer pain as they pulled out one wire for another.

Oh but times have changed! Things are so much better than the medieval torture devices once knows as braces. Now there is Invisalign and it is here to save the day of so many people. No more monthly trips to the dentist, no more worry about breaking a brackets or a wire, and no more wax stuck to a bracket because it’s ripping a hole through the side of your mouth.

One of the best things about Invisalign is that there is no more goop. There have been revolutionary breakthroughs in orthodontia with the use of digital imaginimg to take dental impressions for teeth straightening with Invisalign. No more goopy molds to gag on, now with digital scanners like iTero, patients are comfortable while taking dental impressions and the orthodontist is able to receive precise 3D imagery through the use of an iTero wand to create a teeth straightening treatment plan with Invisalign. Now, with that being said I should also say that some dentists still do the traditional impressions, but more and more are offering the digital scans.

With Invisalign gone are the days of the metal brackets that wrap around your teeth, the rubber band spacers, and the dreaded head gear (thankfully I didn’t have to wear that). Invisalign is a clear alternative to the traditional metal braces that uses a series of removable aligners that gradually move teeth overtime and because they’re removable you can eat anything that you want. The treatment capabilities of Invisalign are pretty vast and can help over crowded teeth, widely spaced teeth, overbite, underbite and other dental issues.

If I haven’t convinced you yet that Invisalign is the way to go then think about this… there are few office visits with Invisalign, the visits you do have are shorter, and there are no emergency visits for broken brackets or wires from the metal braces.

Because my daughter didn’t have all of her adult teeth in yet I had to subject her to the metal braces. Sorry, Nat. But if she has to actually have phase 2 orthodontic work done then it’s very possible that Invisalign could be an option for her.

So… brace face or Invisalign?

Disclaimer: Yes, this is a sponsored post. I will say that the story about my torturous braces, thoughts, and opinions are all mine.