No More Goop in the Digital Age

You know how much fun dental impressions can be, and it’s not much . . . The “goopy stuff” is just that, goopy, and aside from all the inaccuracies that a little twitch here or there can mean, there’s the added frustration that you’re left with a bunch of plasticy ick stuck to your mouth and teeth after the mold’s been made. Impressions are a major pain, so here in the office, we’re giving impressions an upgrade. We’re so excited to introduce our newest piece of machinery to call Benson  Orthodontics home, an intraoral scanner!

These bad boys are just incredible. Now the whole thing comes in this big cabinet since it’s not just a camera, it’s a whole computer system with an air compressor attached as well (we’ll get to the air compressor in a jiff). The actual camera part  sits on the end of a little wand, almost like Harry Potter’s but with a different kind of magic! The wand is hooked to the cabinet and connected to the computer and the compressor. To keep the image clear, the compressor shoots just a tiny stream of air out of the end. That small stream keeps fog from your breath from clouding the camera lens and that’s the only thing you feel throughout the entire scan.

Back in the day (ok, back in August), you used to have to wait for a month or so to get your Invisaligns. But instead of waiting for the molds to get shipped to the lab, then go through the process of making a ‘positive’ impression from the negative of the mold, and then wait through the production of the Invisaligns themselves, in three weeks or less you can  have your new pair. What this means in the long run is shorter treatment time for you (even if it is only by a week or so).

When you really think about it, the process of taking a mold hasn’t really changed since orthodontics itself was invented.  Just like conventional photography, that mold is really a negative of your teeth, so the actual process of making an Invisalign means extrapolating from that negative to make a positive for your teeth. While the goopy stuff catches a lot, it can miss a lot. I’ve even had the lab call me up and say that a mold just wasn’t going to give a detailed enough aligner. With the scanner, I don’t just save time, I’m also able to get a really high quality image, better and more consistent than traditional molds.

I’m obviously really excited to have something like this in our office, but what this really means for you is that treatment will be just a bit more precise and by extension, more effective. Combined with speedy delivery, the scanner will give our Invisalign patients faster, more effective, and more comfortable treatment than ever before. Even better, this state of the art machine is coming at no extra cost to you. Right now, I’m just using the scanner for Invisaligns, but down the road, the technology should even allow us to scan the teeth of patients with conventional braces still on so on the day their braces finally come off, they can take their retainers home with them! It’s amazing what we’re able to do in the digital age. We took a day long course in the care, keeping, and operation of the machine, and we're so excited to use our new intra-oral scanner!