Get the picture?
If you have always wanted to get your teeth realigned but are not so keen on the process of having great wadges of putty put in your mouth to make impressions of your teeth, then you are in for a very happy surprise.
Here at Graham Tinkler, we no longer rely on dental putty to make measurements of your teeth to turn into Invisalign clear aligners. As one of the UK’s handful of platinum-accredited Invisalign providers, Graham Tinkler invests a lot into his equipment and for some while now has been using a digital scanner to make images of your teeth. The Invisalign Itero in London is a hand-held scanner that obviates the need for putty.
How the Invisalign Itero in London works
The scanner goes inside your mouth and it takes a couple of minutes to take hundreds of pictures of your teeth. Unlike dental putty, where you have to be able to keep your mouth open while the putty goes in and while it’s hardening, if you need a break from the Invisalign Itero in London, we can pause the scanning and come back to it. You can have as many breaks as you like, which is important if you have a dental phobia or gag easily.
As the scanner goes along, the digital pictures are sent to a nearby screen where they are built in real time into a 3D image of your teeth, gums and jawbone. Once the image is complete, it can be manipulated using another program to show you how your teeth will need to move in order to align properly. This is a very exciting experience for many patients and gives them inspiration to go forward with Invisalign treatment.
With digital images, it won’t be long before treatment can begin as we can ping the digital information over to the Invisalign factory in the US in no time at all, instead of having to wait several days while solid-state impressions are sent by airmail.
Once your aligners are here, we can start you on treatment, which takes a year on average with you wearing them for at least 22 hours a day.