My Experience at Bloggy Boot Camp/Invisalign Straight Talk

On May 31 I got an opportunity to attend Bloggy Boot Camp in Seattle. The 8-hour round-trip drive from my home here in Oregon isn’t something I take lightly, but I’ve been wanting to get more of a perspective on blogging beyond just the technical aspects. I was also intrigued about Invisalign from just what little I had heard about it. The whole trip ended up being even more fun and informative than I could have imagined. The SITS Girls and Dr. Ataii are fantastic speakers and really know their stuff!

It’s been a few years since having my teeth straightened has even crossed my mind, but in my teens/early 20’s I thought about it quite a bit. My big problem was more sports related than aesthetic. My front two teeth are well aligned so they look OK as long as I don’t open too wide. Even my friends and family seem not to notice my teeth alignment problems unless I go out of my way to show them. (Perhaps they’re just being polite!) My problem is mainly that both the upper and lower teeth immediately to the left of my front incisors (Google tells me that these are my lateral incisors) jut forward. Years ago, as an aspiring martial artist, this was a situation that led to me having what seemed like a permanent fat lip. Any time I’d get hit on the left side of my face my lip would get pinched on those crooked teeth and I’d end up with a fat lip. Mouth guards would help but not 100%.

Back in the early/mid 90’s the only option I had was traditional braces and that opens up a whole new problem. Dr. Ataii even mentioned sports injuries that involve braces and I’ll spare the gruesome details. I’ll just leave it by saying that you do *not* want to take impact to your mouth while wearing fixed wire braces. Invisalign’s alternative to traditional braces for pre-teen & teen patients, Invisalign Teen, would have been the perfect solution for me back then. One common myth is that all teeth straightening treatments pose this sort of injury hazard, but Invisalign can be used without adding risks in sports, and even playing musical instruments. Back in high school I had a friend who played the trumpet in marching band and I remember the anxiety he had about having the trumpet “Bumped” while playing. I’m sure you can imagine how easily that can happen while marching in formation, and how painful it would be to have the metal mouthpiece jarred right into your mouth. It makes me shudder to imagine that happening with wire braces. Since the Invisalign aligners are removable, all of these problems with sports, music, and other activities are just not an issue. This also makes flossing and cleaning easy when you can take them out. It’s also worth noting that Invisalign Teen comes with several aligner sets in case some are lost or misplaced.

Another impressive moment in the talk was when they demonstrated the iTero scanner. When someone is fitted for Invisalign the providers can use either a traditional impression, or an iTerro scanner. You can check to see if your local provider uses iTerro by clicking here to pull up the Invisalign Doctor Locator and looking for the iTerro symbol. The iTerro scanner is able to make a digital impression of your teeth unobtrusively in just minutes. I took this picture of an audience volunteer trying out the iTerro scanner. I can’t remember the exact time it took to complete but it was less that 6 minutes.

There were so many good questions from the audience and Dr. Ataii and his assistants were able to answer all of them clearly. I couldn’t possible remember all of the great information that they covered so here are some links that would better answer any questions you might have:
 
Invisalign Website
How Invisalign Works
Invisalign Infographic
Invisalign on Twitter  
Invisalign on Facebook  

My biggest takeaway from the the talk was that I not only wish that this had been available when I was in high school, but it’s something I would consider now.

If you or someone you know had traditional braces as a teen, were there any activities that were disrupted which wouldn’t have been a problem with Invisalign?