Orthodontics San Diego

Slightly, and briefly. Most people notice a small lisp on s and sh sounds for the first few days of a new set while the tongue adjusts to the plastic edge. It nearly always settles within a week, and talking normally through it speeds that up rather than slowing it down. If you have a presentation or something similar early in treatment, start a new tray a few days beforehand rather than the night before. Persistent speech trouble past a couple of weeks is worth a look — usually it means a tray edge needs trimming.

Usually yes, with planning. Crowns and veneers move with the tooth underneath, though the small attachments that grip teeth during treatment bond less predictably to porcelain than to enamel, so they may be placed elsewhere. Implants are the real constraint: an implant is fused to bone and does not move, so the treatment plan has to work around it as a fixed point. That is a design question, not a disqualifier. Existing restorations also sometimes need replacing after treatment because the teeth around them have shifted — better to know that at the start.

Roughly every six to ten weeks for Invisalign, and about every four to six weeks for fixed braces where wires need adjusting. Invisalign visits are short — we check that teeth are tracking with the plan, place or adjust attachments if needed, and hand over the next several trays. Between those, you change aligners yourself at home. Most of treatment happens without us, which is exactly why wear time matters more than appointment frequency.

It handles considerably more than crowding. Overbites, underbites, crossbites, gaps and open bites are all treatable with aligners in many cases, using attachments and small elastics to control how teeth move in three dimensions rather than just sliding them sideways. There are limits: severe skeletal discrepancies — where the jaws themselves are mismatched rather than the teeth — may need fixed braces, or surgery alongside orthodontics. We would rather tell you that at the consultation than halfway through.