18 Jul What is a refinement?

So, if you’ve been reading along with my series on Invisalign, you’ll now know about what Invisalign is and how it works, and what a Clincheck 3D video animated treatment plan is.

Now lets talk about what might happen during your treatment, what a refinement is and why some dentists are being a little more than cheeky by not telling you about all this upfront!

For certain percentage of people, their teeth will move exactly as we’ve planned, and at the end of their first series of aligners, their teeth will be exactly where we want them to be and everything is perfectly finished off in just one set of aligners! Great no problems and no need for any refinements, straight onto keeping your teeth straight and maybe even a little whitening to finish things off.

This, however isn’t the case for all patients, and in my experience for most patients.

Teeth can be unpredictable at times, and don’t alway move exactly as we planned them to, some times teeth will ‘lag’, i.e. they will be moving slower than we had planned them to.

This is one of the things your Invisalign certified dentist at Dental Beauty Islington will be reviewing with you during your visits to us every 6-8 weeks, and there are some things we can do to help move these stubborn teeth, (see tips and tricks to get the most out of your Invisalign).

Predictably I have found most patients will achieve 80% – 90% of the desired movement we planned in their original clincheck on their first series of aligners.

So what happens next?

Well this is where we do what is known as a ‘Refinement‘. This is where we take new moulds of your teeth, create a new 3D treatment plan, and manufacture another series of aligners to tidy up the final little movements you may need, basically repeating the process.

Now here is what you should be aware of. Many places will quote really “cheap prices” for Invisalign to get you in the door and signed up, but they won’t tell you lots of things aren’t included! Commonly they may charge you extra for …

• Invisalign Records visit
• X-rays
• Photos
• Refinements
• Retainers

Some practices can charge up to £1000 per refinement!! Can you imagine that, getting towards the end of your series of aligners and being told if you want to finish it off you have to pay another £1000!!

To me this is really cheeky, in fact, it’s worse, I think it’s plain dishonest, as once you have got to this stage, you’ve invested your time and money and are then faced with this horrible choice;

‘Do I pay more money to finish of my treatment as I wanted originally or do I stop and walk away without having got the smile I wanted?’

That’s why at Dental Beauty Islington we’ve created what we call ‘All inclusive invisalign package’. These include EVERYTHING mentioned above.

We want you to have the piece of mind that when you choose to have your Invisalign treatment with Dental Beauty Islington, there will be no hidden costs, all your consultations, visits, x-rays, photos, refinements and retainers are fully included in your treatment plan.

Depending on which Invisalign product you choose, i7, lite or full. We will provide you with the maximum refinements Invisalign allow.

For Invisalign full packages this actually includes unlimited retainers as needed to achieve your treatment goals (see t&c’s for more details, available on request).

In fact now we’ve gone one step further and not only included retainers to help keep your teeth straight, but the best retainers around, Invisaligns’ own Vivera retainers.

Keeping your teeth straight is something which I think every patient should be aware of before they start their treatment, read more about retention and how to keep your teeth straight as well as Vivera Retainers here.