Good checkup

Had an orthodontist checkup this morning. He looked in my mouth for a few seconds, said everything looked good, asked me how things were going, and gave me 3 more sets of aligners. I am glad all is well, but sort of wish he had to do a little more work to justify the huge fees I am paying for Invisalign.

I recounted to the doc something from the other day - I was in the men's room brushing my teeth and aligners after lunch, when another fellow walked in, popped out his aligners and brushed as well. He said he was at nearly the 2 year mark with invisalign, and still had another 6 months to go. His ortho had originally told him the whole job would be less than 1 year.

My ortho said that it all comes down to case selection; that Invisalign does some things better than others, and that an Invisalign job should never take more than 1 year. If it is longer, then the patient was not a good candidate for Invisalign, and the ortho should not have taken the case.

If the above is true, then maybe I should reconsider the first paragraph above - that my ortho's case selection and initial setup of my Invisalign case (molds, ClinCheck planning, etc.) were where my money was spent, and that a good job then paved the way for uneventful checkups and a hopefully successful, under 1 year long, case. Like having a good architect design your building from the outset.