Q.
Hiya, my dentist has just suggested that i start with invisalign. at a cost of almost £3000. i’m 19 and currently unemployed so that is a huge cost to me. I have some sort of problem (which i will be seeing a doctor about asap) which means i cannot breath through my nose very well so i tend to breath through my mouth and have done as long as i can remember. i have been told that this is the reason for the dental problems i have. i have a narrow top jaw which caused 2 of my teeth (the ones either side of my 2 front teeth) to come through behind the front ones. i had orthodontic treatment beginning with an expandable retainer from age 10 (i was made fun of because i couldnt talk around it so i often took it out) after some time i then had fixed braces which for a while had a spring in the roof of my mouth in order to expand it a little more i think. after just under a year with those on (the elastic band kind) they were removed and i had lovely straight teeth…. for about 2 weeks, maybe a month before the two offending teeth began to move back again i had another chunky plastic/wire retainer which i did wear and my orthodontist reduced the time i had to wear it towards the end of my treatment (every other day… just nights etc) my teeth now are nowhere near as bad as they were originally, i just have a slight crossbite involving those two teeth, but i really wish they were straight again. i saw in one of your other answers about permenant retainers, like a wire stuck behind the teeth to prevent them moving, my cousin in america has one of those and i always thought i should have had that done too since my teeth had moved so drastically and i feared they’d be more likely to move back. i was never offered the option to have a permenant retainer else i surely would have gone for it. should i have been? i also wonder if the breathing problem may have had some impact on whether or not my teeth moved after treatment? is £3000 (i think it might have been £2800 but even so) a reasonable price for my treatment and is it worth doing or will my teeth just move again? i do hope you can offer some guidance, many thanks.