Time to expect for appointment: 30 minutes- 1 hour (this can vary depending on how many areas we are doing)

QUICK OVERVIEW OF WHAT TO EXPECT WITH IPR

There is no numbing needed for this. Although the process can be a little odd for you as the patient , we do this everyday and many of us have had IPR done as well going through treatment ourselves. We will use several color coded thin strips to go between certain teeth. Each colored strip is incrementally thicker than the previous one, to allow for a gradual, steady, and accurate amount of reduction. Once we are finished we have an instrument to check and ensure we have created enough space for the teeth to pass each other.

 REVIEW OF WHAT IPR (Inter-proximal Reduction) IS AND WHY IT IS NEEDED

Most cases we don’t do IPR on the seat day (there are some exceptions), but just to review most cases (not all) require IPR, especially if you have crowding or a deep bite. IPR is when we go between the teeth and reduce the amount of friction between them allowing them to rotate and/or move closer together to improve your bite. IPR is done without the need for any kind of local anesthetic or numbing. We typically will schedule this into two separate appointments.

WHAT TO EXPECT IN THE NEXT APPOINTMENTS

IPR- In most cases your second and third appointment after seating your trays requires some form of IPR to reduce the friction between some teeth to allow them to move and maintain or create a healthy bite

Removal- In most cases your 4th appointment will be to remove attachments and smooth any rough edges of teeth, we will scan and take photos. At this appointment you and our staff will evaluate your teeth, trays, and bite. If everything looks great then we order retainers, if there are some things that you want to tweak or we think can be improved we can order more trays. The end goal for us is to not only make you happy, but to make sure you have a healthy bite and improve the overall ease of you being able to sufficiently clean your teeth (which can result in fewer cavities in the future).