Clear, see-through or ‘invisible braces’ have been under development for almost as long as metal braces have been used in clinics; more than 100 years and counting! So why have clear braces Clapham become popular in the last 5 years or so? Why do we get so many patients asking about them?

There are two main branches of clear or invisible orthodontic tools, these are the clear aligners (which are technically not braces but are called invisible braces), and clear ceramic braces which are braces but do have a thin archwire which is not clear! Quite confusing!

Why go clear?

The driving force behind a clear brace is aesthetics. The effectiveness of a traditional metal brace is not doubted, but its users have had to tolerate them as a means to an end, rather than finding them particularly attractive.

Clear ceramic braces were developed first and are almost identical to the standard braces, but these braces are made of a clear material. This used to be glass but is now a much tougher polymer ceramic mix.

The first clear plastic aligners were called dental splints and although they were effective, they were too expensive and fiddly to gain widespread use.

But now, our clear braces Clapham patients are quickly outnumbering our traditional orthodontic patients; why?

The metal, design and manufacturing used in invisible braces have all taken great leaps in the last 10 years, lowering costs, increasing convenience and effectiveness, while at the same time, we are seeing more adults looking for orthodontic care. And with much higher standards than adolescents who will begrudgingly put up with braces in school which work, professionals simply will not wear a metal brace in the office.

Invisalign comes to our clinic

Pushing forward, a lot of these innovations are due to one of our partners and suppliers of Invisalign. They started 3D scanning models of patients’ teeth in the ’90s with scanning studios. They then used the models as a starting point to calibrate a medical simulation of a patient’s mouth; in this simulation, treatment options could be explored and an orthodontist familiar with the software could realign the patient’s teeth as they would with a traditional brace, but doing so with the computer image.

The design software then created a series of steps, plotting the movement of the teeth from their starting to finishing positions. Then, with a little reverse engineering, the software could then calculate how much force was needed, the directions that force had to be applied to move the teeth, alongside those movement pathways. The next step was predicting the necessary shape of the aligners which, when being worn, would generate the desired forces and move the teeth!

Nowadays once the aligners are generated digitally, their 3D models are sent to a dental laboratory to be printed from UV light-cured resin, and sent out to our clinic, thus providing clear braces Clapham!

As 3D scanning, printing and computation have all improved, so have clear aligners – they have become more accurate, thinner, lighter and cheaper to make. Even any errors like bubbles or warping that can occur with regular dental moulds have been eliminated, with the adoption of intra-oral scanners making mould-taking redundant for designing a personalised aligner.