OrthoClear No More

Someone call a Waaambulance! Well, that's it. Align Technologies bought out OrthoClear. No more OrthoClear! Since I'm 13 months into OrthoClear treatment, and still quite away from completion, it'll be interesting to find out how the rest of my treatment will go.

I called my ortho today to get more info. It turns out that they didn't even know about it! They sounded somewhat alarmed, and assured me that they were going to call OrthoClear's regional representative to find out more.

According to Align Technologies (the company that owns Invisalign) "OrthoClear patients will start treatment with Invisalign as if they were a new case. Doctors will have to take new records and submit a new case form, and Align will need verify that the patient is eligible for free treatment. However, Align will allow doctors to start OrthoClear patients in Invisalign at no charge - provided they agree not to charge their patients an additional fee."

So no additional fee. I expected that at the very least. But starting over?! This means that I have to get new impressions made, and that I'll have to wait 6-8 weeks to get my new aligners! I've been in treatment for over a year with less than 6 months to go at this point. Now I'm going to be delayed about 2 months?! This sucks. I was hoping that I'd be finished with aligners by Christmas. Grrrrr! Get me a Waaaambulance.

My OrthoClear Progress

Updated pics!

Lots of updated pics of my OrthoClear treatment are here! This shot is with aligner set #18 in.




And for those who want to know if the aligners fit completely around your teeth, here are how my current aligners are fitting. You can see some space at the bottoms of my upper aligners, as well as on the bottom ones. It's not very noticable, especially when you're talking.

This is the first shot of my teeth before I began treatment. Can we say "Snaggletooth"?

This shot is after five months of treatment. A big improvement!





This is the latest pic, 12 months into treatment. There's not much change in the front teeth, but my molars are in the process of moving outwards. My smile is looking more square than it used to. My overbite is greatly reduced as well!


Here's a sequence of comparisons of my aligners between my first set and set #19 (which I don't have in yet). Click on the image to enlarge it!


The most dramatic improvement has been with the reduction of crowding on my lower teeth. While my teeth aren't completely straight on the bottom yet, they are much better than one year ago!

This shot is of both aligners stacked so you can see how my overbite (and overall bite!) has been improved.


Here's a comparison shot of my top aligners. I still have straightening to do, but I hope I'm close to being finished with my treatment!