What Happens When Invisalign Doesn't Work?

As I discussed in my last post, one of my teeth is not cooperating. Here is the culprit:

As you can see, it's just not moving with the rest of them, and now the attachment on that tooth no longer lines up with the notch on the tray at all, so it's pretty much hopeless that it's going to fall back into the program.

So today I went to the orthodontist for my regular appointment, and discussed it with him. He noticed it right off, of course. Basically the only way to correct it is to toss the rest of my trays and start over with a new plan from the computers at Invisalign beginning with this point in time. I was assured that this will not result in any extra costs for me. I can only guess that this will add time to my overall treatment plan, but we won't know until my new trays arrive. Luckily, that shouldn't be too long from now because my orthodontist has a new toy.

Rather than make molds like they did the first time, the office now has a machine that skips that step and creates the computerized 3D images right on the spot. This means no more mailing the physical molds to California and waiting 4-6 weeks for them to send the trays. Instead the file will be sent electronically, and I will have my new trays in a little over a week. The machine even does a preliminary treatment overview and shows you exactly how your teeth will look when done. Really cool. Here's the machine with the rough model of my teeth before it did all its processing:

The process involves a technician simply taking that wand and going over and over your teeth with it until a complete image is generated. She had some trouble with mine, mainly because the machine is new and I was only the third person she'd ever used it on, but also because it was very difficult to get the wide wand all the way to the back of my mouth to get my still-present wisdom teeth. It was very uncomfortable, and someone with a very active gag reflex would have certainly had a hard time tolerating it. But nonetheless even with the complications the whole process took about 20 minutes. If 20 minutes of being uncomfortable can save me 5 weeks of waiting time, I'm all for it.

Other than that, the visit went well. I'm to continue to wear the tray that I'm on until my new ones arrive. He was pleased with the way that the elastics (rubber bands) have been moving my lower jaw back. I was pleased that they had a fix for my wayward tooth, and that it won't cost me any more money.