When is it required to take out a tooth during an ​Invisalign treatment?

Dental crowding is caused by too many teeth and not enough space to accommodate them.

Are we normally born with too many teeth? The answer is No! What has happened is that the size of our dental arch is getting smaller due to our soft diets. It is well known that tribesman that live in the open wilderness have a full set of teeth with little or no crowding.

Another reason is stress. As we stress over our studies, partners, work and health, we tend to clench our teeth.

The action of our chewing muscles on the teeth causes movement inwards and constriction, leading to dental crowding, especially in the people of the modern world.

With Invisalign I usually expand the dental arch to create space, but this is not always possible

Sometimes it is easier to take out the offending tooth and then straighten the teeth.

See below, a severely crowded lower arch, corrected by with Invisalign in just over 10 months. The outer tooth was first removed and the space utilised to correct the crowding with Invisalign.