Many people considering ways to straighten their smiles aren’t eager to have traditional braces bonded in place. If you want to enhance your appearance without metal brackets, you might benefit from Invisalign. This alternative treatment uses clear plastic trays that fit over your teeth to gently shift them to their ideal places.
However, it’s important to be well-informed before beginning any orthodontic treatment. Understanding more about what’s involved can help you make an educated decision about your dental care. For example, you might want to know whether Invisalign will interfere with your speech patterns. If you’re curious, keep reading to learn more about it!
Does Invisalign Impact My Ability to Speak?
To prevent your teeth from reverting to their previous positions, you’ll be required to wear your clear plastic trays for 22 hours every day. You should only take them out for meals and cleanings, which means you’ll have to adjust to speaking with the smooth material covering your pearly whites. While this doesn’t necessarily lead to a speech impediment, it has the potential to interfere with how you enunciate certain words.
How Does Invisalign Influence Speech Patterns?
Although some people never experience any problems speaking with Invisalign, others run into challenges with particular sounds. Thankfully, they are often temporary and resolve themselves once you grow accustomed to wearing that set of trays in your mouth. It also means that you might have a repeat issue when you switch to your next set.
Some potential issues you might run into can include:
- A slight lisp. Dental mouthpieces can alter the amount of available space and how your tongue moves against your teeth. Certain sounds require that you hold things in a specific way to create the right airflow, like when pronouncing “s,” “z,” and “th” sounds.
- Slurring. Because your mouth will feel different when you’re wearing Invisalign, you might speak more slowly at first or slur your words. With time and practice you can return to a normal speaking style and speed.
How Can I Acclimate to Speaking with Invisalign?
To adjust more quickly, you can practice reading out loud. Frequency and repetition help your tongue and supporting muscles in your mouth acclimate to speaking clearly with your trays inserted. You might even try recording yourself so you can clearly hear words, phrases, or sounds that aren’t coming through as clearly as you’d like. That way, you can focus your time and efforts on improving specific problems.
Fortunately, any enunciation issues that come with Invisalign usually don’t last long, so you can continue to enjoy engaging conversations with family and friends!
About the Practice
Patients at Brown, Reynolds, Snow, LeNoir Dentistry benefit from a team of experts who work together to offer a full range of services at two convenient locations. They have experience treating patients of all ages, so the entire family receives the same award-winning care. They combine a comfortable environment with state-of-the-art technology to enhance your comfort while simultaneously increasing the accuracy of treatment results. If you’re interested in straightening your smile with Invisalign, you can request a consultation on the website or by calling (804) 288-5324.