Invisalign has traditionally recommended that aligners be changed every 2 weeks/14 days. The reason for this is that for tooth movement to occur, the bone around the teeth needs to remodel and repair itself. We don’t want to move teeth that quickly because bone healing is an important process and needs to be respected.
That being said, the wear schedule for Invisalign varies depending on the type of tooth movement taking place. For more simple tooth movements, we sometimes recommend patients change their aligners every 10 or even 7 days. This is a clinical judgment that needs to be made by an orthodontist. This highlights another difference between a general dentist and orthodontist doing Invisalign. Since orthodontists have 2-3 years of additional training, they have better understanding of tooth movements and how to sequence your Invisalign treatment more efficiently.
With advances like Acceledent (see our acceledent page here) which works on speeding up the bone repair process, aligners are frequently changed every 7 days – if not faster!
For more information about Invisalign or Acceledent, feel free to contact our office in Vaughan.