Clear aligners or braces? A straight answer for adults
Aligners are not always better and braces are not always faster. What each one is genuinely good at.
Most adults arrive having already decided they want aligners. Sometimes that is right. Here is the honest comparison.
Where aligners win
- Mild to moderate crowding and spacing.
- Relapse after childhood orthodontics — extremely common, and aligners handle it well.
- Anyone whose job involves being looked at closely.
- Oral hygiene: you take them out to brush, so gum health during treatment is usually better.
Where fixed braces still win
- Severe rotations, significant bite correction, or teeth that need bodily movement through bone.
- Cases needing extraction space closure.
- Patients who know, honestly, that they will not wear a removable appliance 22 hours a day.
The part nobody mentions
Aligners only work while they are in your mouth. Twenty-two hours a day is the requirement, not a suggestion. If you take them out at every meal, every coffee and every meeting, treatment stalls and the plan stops matching reality.
Retention — for both
Teeth move for life. Whatever moves them straight, a retainer keeps them there. Plan on wearing one at night indefinitely. That is not a failure of the treatment; it is how teeth work.
Come in for a scan and we will show you the simulation for your own case, with a realistic month count rather than a marketing one.
