Mail-Order “Invisalign”

I know that Smile Direct Club went out of business. Do you know of another option like that? I don’t want to have to go to a dentist every two weeks.

Joe

Hi Joe,

I am glad you wrote before just following through with this idea. One of the things that is awesome about a free market is that you can find just about any type of service if you look hard enough. However, this comes with comes with some dangers. Just because something is available, does not mean that you should use it.

SmileDirect would have gone out of business much sooner had they not been suppressing negative reviews. Once the court said that SmileDirect couldn’t hold people’s money hostage unless they agreed to not say anything negative about them, all the truth about the problems with their treatments and procedures came flooding out. They went out of business shortly after that. Yes, there are other companies that will step into the consumer market when SmileDirect went out of business, but they are going to have the same problems in regard to their treatment.

First, without an accurate impression your treatment plan is going to be off. That could be slightly off or it could be disastrously off. Second, you don’t have an adequate examination before your treatment. Most of these companies either go by a photograph, which cannot tell you what you need to know about things like gum disease, etc., or they will use dentists who are on their payroll and under tremendous pressure to approve them for treatment. Third, there will be no one monitoring your case carefully. They may or may not have you send in photos, but again, that is completely inadequate. Bodies, rarely follow a blueprint. Because of that, dentists and orthodontists often have to make adjustments to your treatment along the way. These mail-order companies cannot do that.

If your only hesitation about using Invisalign is that you don’t want to go to the orthodontist every two weeks, I have some great news for you. The common treatment plan is to get two sets of aligners that you wear for two weeks and then you go in for an examination once a month. That is half the visits that you were expecting to have to do.

If you want the best, safest treatment, then I would stick to the real deal, which would mean either Invisalign or Spark Aligners.

This blog is brought to you by Bee Cave Orthodontist Dr. Alberto Tostado.