How straightening your teeth can impact more than just your smile

Paid for by SmileDirectClub

Orthodontics have come a long way from the metal braces, headgear and wire retainers of yesteryear. Ask any adult who has straightened their teeth, and they’ll tell you how much things have changed since middle school.

Now, you can order custom teeth straightening and whitening services straight to your doorstep. But there’s more to it than transparent aligners and LED whitening accelerator lights. The decision to straighten your teeth may be an aesthetic choice; but physical changes can also inspire personal growth, emotional transformations and lifestyle shifts.

These stories share the highs and lows of three people who, with the help of SmileDirectClub, were able to transform more than just their smiles.

Lynne

“It’s funny,” says Lynne looking back, “growing up, my brother got braces and I got piano lessons. He has straight teeth, but I can’t play the piano.” While she laughs telling the story, her decision to straighten her teeth was made after thoughtful deliberation.

For years, every time Lynne looked in the mirror she was reminded of changes she wanted to make to her teeth. But daily reminders weren’t enough to make her act on it because she had other responsibilities on her mind. “Speaking as a mother, a daughter, a gigi [grandmother] — we don’t always take time for ourselves,” Lynne says. “We spend our money on everybody else, we worry about everybody else. So, the decision to straighten my teeth at 57-years-old was not something that was taken lightly. It was something that I wanted for a really long time.”

After researching her options thoroughly, Lynne chose SmileDirectClub’s treatment. Customer reviews, flexibility and affordability all factored into her decision. For example, SmileDirectClub offers Nighttime Aligners™ for those who don't want to or can’t wear them during the day. “I thought, wow, if I can do this at home without spending hours upon hours at the orthodontist office like I did with both my kids, why not give it a shot?”

After years of waiting, Lynne was finally ready to take the plunge, and the positive results were more than she anticipated. “I feel more confident in my smile — something that had been bothering me since I was a teenager,” Lynne says. Even beyond her physical appearance, Lynne has noticed other health changes that have come with straighter teeth. She’s lost weight, and she no longer wakes up with headaches and jaw pain from teeth grinding.

For anyone who is undecided about whether or not they want to straighten their teeth, Lynne’s message is a simple one: “Just do it. Do it for you. Do it for how it feels when you wake up in the morning and look in the mirror. Do it to boost your confidence. Do it to put a little spring in your step.”

Spencer

“I used to use those selfie filters just to see what a normal smile might look like,” Spencer says, reflecting on the years he spent wishing his teeth were straight. “I would joke about it, but I was secretly ashamed,” he says. It would be years before Spencer would be able to shake that shame.

It was a personal journey, in fact, that would finally encourage Spencer to straighten his smile. “I am a trans man,” Spencer says. “I’ve probably spent the last six years or so transitioning to become the man that I am today, and really the last step of my transition was getting my teeth straightened. It was just the one thing missing from the whole package that I saw myself as. It’s been a dream come true for me.”

And now that Spencer’s transition is complete, the momentum has new goals falling like dominoes. “I am crushing my workout goal. I am working out every day,” Spencer says. “I actually created a treadmill desk, so I’m getting anywhere from 80 to 100 miles per week from walking.” Spencer is also engaging a speech therapist to become a more confident speaker, and is shaking past habits of bad posture he got from hanging his head down to hide his smile. While SmileDirectClub promises a lifetime guarantee on their teeth straightening services, the connectivity between Spencer’s goals and mindset seems to also provide a guarantee of his happiness for his future.

On top of that, Spencer has heard from friends and family how they’ve noticed a change in his confidence — and in how many selfies he wants to take. “They are shocked,” he says. “I love talking to people now and showing off, rather than hiding, my smile.”

When Spencer now says, “My new smile has changed my life,” he means it.

Howard

Howard never used to feel present in his smile. Self-conscious thoughts about his front tooth gap would lurk and linger even when he managed to smile naturally. “I would often smile with my lips closed for a photo,” he says. “Anytime I smiled naturally the thought about the gap kind of interfered with the moment.”

When life gives you lemons, you find a way to make lemonade with imperfect solutions. Howard discovered one such solution by accident: using his tongue ring to obscure the gap in his teeth. “I came across a photo where the gap wasn’t as noticeable,” Howard says. “So, I started to press my tongue against the back of my teeth for photos to hide the gap.”

But imperfect solutions can only get you so far. When he witnessed his aunt’s boost in self-confidence after making a few cosmetic changes, Howard was inspired to reach out to SmileDirectClub about his teeth. “[I saw] a photo of her smiling and being genuinely happy,” Howard says. “That moved me to start thinking more about getting aligners.”

Though he initially hesitated for financial reasons, Howard built credit and saved money until he felt comfortable moving forward with the decision. And the results are in: his teeth have gotten straighter and most of the gaps between them have closed. Howard says that SmileDirectClub is still helping him finish out some final adjustments, something the company offers complimentary to any customer who is not fully satisfied with the end result of their treatment. “I felt relieved when Smile Direct Club offered to revisit, or adjust, the program so we could finish it out as I had hoped for.”

Perhaps even more fortunate than the physical alignment of Howard’s teeth, is the fact that his new smile feels “complete” in a way that it didn’t before. He doesn’t pretend that straight teeth are a guaranteed free ride to true happiness, but Howard does acknowledge the influence that physical changes can have on mindset and perspective. “Straightening teeth may be superficial to true happiness and joy,” Howard says, “Was it necessary in order to not feel self-conscious? No, it was not necessary. But it did help — and for that, I am grateful.”

From SmileDirectClub:

SmileDirectClub has helped more than 1.5 million people transform their smiles through our pioneering telehealth platform for orthodontia. We’re an international oral care leader, with hundreds of SmileShops, hundreds of SmileDirectClub Partner Network dental office locations, a network of affiliated, state-licensed dentists and orthodontists.

Visit smiledirectclub.com to learn more.