Smile Direct Club or Orthodontic Braces?

AaronB

Member
We've been told that my 11 year-old daughter will need braces for crowding. The ones the orthodontist will put in will cost over $6000. The alternative I'm aware of is smile direct club, which is more like $2000. I figured there'd be someone on this board with real knowledge in this area, because finding unbiased information on the internet is like finding the unsalted saltine cracker.

Anyone have experience or expertise with this?

Thanks
 
We've been told that my 11 year-old daughter will need braces for crowding. The ones the orthodontist will put in will cost over $6000. The alternative I'm aware of is smile direct club, which is more like $2000. I figured there'd be someone on this board with real knowledge in this area, because finding unbiased information on the internet is like finding the unsalted saltine cracker.

Anyone have experience or expertise with this?

Thanks

I'm not sure I know what Smile Direct Club is. Is it like invisiline? Because I think that's generally more expensive than traditional braces.
 
I recently found out that when you start wearing braces and your teeth are aligned/fixed, you still need to wear them, otherwise they go revert back. WTF.
 
I recently found out that when you start wearing braces and your teeth are aligned/fixed, you still need to wear them, otherwise they go revert back. WTF.

You need to wear a retainer. First whenever you're not eating for I think six months, and then at bedtime for the rest of your life.
 
I can't speak about Smile Direct, but one of the selling points about Invisalign or similar, is that you don't have to go through an orthodontist, many you can continue to see your general dentist for. And, where I live, dental schools will offer Invisalign type services at really really low cost - the clinics are supervised by an experienced dentist, and if you don't mind the appointments taking longer, could be a way to go that route cheaper. However, depending on the teeth, they may be severe enough that a correction can really only be achieved by orthodontics - I had braces for 2.5 years in high school, 15 years ago and I wear my retainers 1-2x / week, sometimes no weeks - sometimes 3-4, I love having straight teeth and I love that I have an appliance at home to help with that!
 
I recently found out that when you start wearing braces and your teeth are aligned/fixed, you still need to wear them, otherwise they go revert back. WTF.

You need to wear a retainer. First whenever you're not eating for I think six months, and then at bedtime for the rest of your life.

Plus you potentially have to have a permanent retainer installed, I have a bottom one. I had a top one but it broke, and they figured I could live without it as long as I was using the normal retainer. The permanent retainer is the worst part honestly, I didn't know going in that I would have a permanent metal fixture on the back of my teeth, Kind of drives you nuts for a while after finally having all the rest of the braces off.
 
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We got our son Smile Direct. My wife used Invisalign. We are both incredibly impressed with our son's results after 3 months, and would suggest them over standard braces or Invisaligns.
 
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