Adult Invisalign
An honest look at what clear aligners do well for adult teeth, where their limits lie, what a typical day wearing them is like, and what it costs in Broughty Ferry.
Is Invisalign Available for Adults in Broughty Ferry?
It is. Teeth keep moving at any age, so most adults with crowding, spaces or teeth that have drifted since the braces of their school days can be treated with Invisalign, as long as their gums are in good health. At our Broughty Ferry practice, Dr Nikhil Sharma plans each case from an iTero scan, and fees begin at £2,500, with refinements, Vivera retainers and whitening all included. The aligners are worn 20 to 22 hours a day, typically for anywhere between six months and eighteen months.
Does Age Matter?
It does not. The bone around your teeth is living tissue that renews itself throughout your life, which is why a tooth at 45 can move just as it would at 15. Apply steady pressure against a root and the bone ahead of it gradually yields while new bone forms behind. An aligner delivers that pressure in small, carefully planned increments.
What determines suitability is the condition of your gums, the amount of bone supporting each root, and whether you will honestly keep the aligners in for long enough each day. Many people begin treatment in their forties, fifties or beyond.
The Reasons Adults Come to Us
Adults asking about Invisalign generally belong to one of three groups.
- Teenage braces, followed by relapse. It is usually the lower front teeth, and usually because the retainer was abandoned in a drawer long ago. These are often short, straightforward courses.
- Crowding that is getting steadily worse. Lower teeth especially tend to bunch together with age, and that makes them harder to keep clean.
- A gap or a rotated tooth that has always bothered you. A space between the two front teeth, or a single tooth sitting out of line, visible in every photograph.
Aligners can also manage mild to moderate bite issues: a deep overbite, a slight underbite, or a crossbite where some upper teeth bite inside the lower ones.
See Whether Aligners Are Right for You
Book a free consultation with Dr Sharma, including your iTero scan and a simulation of the result.
When Aligners Are Not the Right Tool
Some issues are in the jaws rather than the teeth. Where the lower jaw sits well behind or well ahead of the upper, aligners can neaten the teeth but cannot alter the skeleton, and fixed braces with an orthodontist, occasionally combined with jaw surgery, may be required. Fixed braces are not something we provide here, so if that is the better path we will refer you on and explain our reasoning.
Any active gum disease must be treated and stable before you start, since moving teeth through inflamed, receding bone accelerates the damage. Decay needs filling as well. Existing crowns and fillings are no obstacle, but a dental implant is fused into bone and will not move at all, so the plan has to work around it. Between them, your examination, X-rays and scan reveal whether any of this applies, well before you commit.
The Journey From First Appointment to Last Aligner
- Consultation. This is free, with a £40 deposit that is refunded within 7 days once you have attended. Dr Sharma examines your teeth, your gums and your bite, then takes an iTero Lumina scan, which is over in a few minutes and involves no putty at all.
- Simulation. You get a preview of how your teeth could end up, overlaid on a photo of your own face, followed by the planned movement stage by stage. Think of it as a target rather than a promise, because not every tooth responds the same way. 2
- A fixed price. How much movement the plan involves determines the package, and you have the fee in writing before we order anything.
- Fitting. Tiny tooth-coloured bumps known as attachments are bonded onto a few teeth to give the aligners purchase. Occasionally a sliver of enamel is polished away between two teeth to create space.
- At home. You switch to a fresh aligner every one to two weeks.
- Reviews. Normally every six to eight weeks, to confirm each tooth is on schedule.
- Refinement and retainers. Any extra aligners needed at the end are included in the package, as are your Vivera retainers.
A Typical Day
You take the aligners out to eat and to drink anything except plain water. Brush, or at the very least rinse well, before putting them back, otherwise you are trapping food against your teeth for hours on end. Heat from a hot drink can distort the plastic, and tea and coffee can stain it, so enjoy those with the aligners out.
For the first day or two of each new set there is a firm pressure, rather like breaking in new shoes. That is the force moving your teeth, and it soon fades. Your speech might sound a touch different for a few days at the very start. Any time the aligners come out, they go in their case (the classic way to lose one is to wrap it in a napkin on a café tray along Brook Street), and clean them with a soft brush under cool water.
A side effect many people welcome: the hassle of removing the aligners tends to cut out snacking between meals.
How Long It Takes
Anything from about six months to eighteen months. Minor front-tooth crowding, or relapse after old braces, falls at the shorter end. Crowding in both arches, or correcting the bite, takes longer, usually a year or more. You will know how many aligners are planned before you begin.
Two things can lengthen the timeline. The first is how far the teeth have to travel. The second is you: teeth only move during the hours the aligners are in, and leaving them out for a few hours each day soon turns into extra weeks. Refinement aligners at the end can add a little time, and they are already covered by the fee.
Holding on to the Result
Teeth that have been straightened want to drift back, and all teeth shift gradually over a lifetime regardless. The fibres around each root take months to adapt to their new position. That is why every package finishes with Vivera retainers, made to a scan of your completed smile. Most people wear them round the clock for a short period, then at night only from then on. There is more in our guide to retainers.
What It Costs, and What Diamond Apex Means
Invisalign with us ranges from £2,500 for Express to £5,000 for Comprehensive Plus, according to how far your teeth have to move. 1 Included in the fee are your scans and X-rays, all the aligners, any refinements, Vivera retainers, home whitening and one hygiene appointment. All five packages are compared in the Invisalign cost guide. Invisalign does not qualify for the dental plan discount.
We have held Invisalign Diamond Apex status every year from 2022 to 2026. Align Technology awards the tier on the basis of a practice's Invisalign case numbers, and it puts us in the top 1% of European providers by that measure. What it tells you is that aligner treatment is a large part of what we do. It is neither a qualification nor a mark of specialist status.
If you would like your teeth whiter or reshaped once they are straight, aligning them first usually means there is less bonding or veneer work to do afterwards. See smile makeovers.
Questions
This guide is general information, not a diagnosis. A dentist needs to examine you to say what is right for your teeth.