Anyone ever had invisalign braces whilst cycling?

Bit of a strange one but I’m having invisalign braces in the next few weeks and I need to keep them in for 20-22 hours per day. You basically only take them out to eat so this wouldn’t be feasible on the bike as every time you eat you need to clean your teeth and braces.

Has anyone had invisalign before and if so what did you do when needing to fuel on the bike? I’m wondering if a carb drink would be OK but I’m sure you’re only supposed to drink water with the braces? I’ll ask my dentist in a few weeks when I next go but just thought I’d make this post here to get any past experiences from other cyclists!

Yes, I have. Id strongly recommend that you don’t eat or drink anything that can miscolor them. That’s the only issue. Consider mixing your own energy drink with maltodextrin for example.

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My buddy is currently using them and I am pretty sure he just takes them out when riding.

I’ll look into this and try to find out for sure if it will discolour them…!

Yeah probably ok for 1-3 hour rides but I like to do 6+ hour rides especially on the weekend and in a few months I’m going on holiday for a week which will involve all day riding for 6 days straight so need to try and find something to get around it…

I highly doubt it will matter much to even skip a day. It’s a retainer system where they progressively give you a new set to further tighten your teeth. Less time in the mouth means it will take longer to get the desired result.

I went through this from last year into this. I decided not to eat while on bike and used liquid carbs instead. May not be ideal per individual but I was able to get it to work for me regardless of ride length.

I had them. My dentist said the big thing to avoid was drinking anything sugary while wearing them as it would get into the retainers and without saliva flowing freely to neutralise the sugar/acid could really accelerate tooth decay. Similar with drinking anything that could stain teeth like coffee or tea, you’d get a concentrated effect.

So I did stick religiously to not eating or drinking anything but water while wearing them. In practice for fuelling rides this meant one of:

  • No fuelling during ride, water only (did this for all rides up to ~1 hour, and Z2-3 rides up to 2 hours or so)
  • Stop to take retainers out, eat/drink, rinse mouth out with water, put retainers back in (did this for longer solo rides or group rides with coffee stops)
  • Ride without retainers and just fuel normally

I tried to keep rides without retainers to a minimum as did want to try and stick to the ~22 hours/day guidance and get the best results I could given the cost. Did get pretty good at pre-ride fuelling and fasted riding as a result! Probably helped that I started the Invisalign process in October so had the retainers over off-season and winter training which meant rides tended to be lower intensity and group rides were more social paced with coffee stops, so it was viable to fuel infrequently.

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I had Invisalign whilst doing a HV 70.3 triathlon plan. I had the same concerns.

I may not be the best person to take advice from as I drank black coffee, carb drinks and took gels (liquid gels, like SiS) while wearing the retainers.

Yeah, they did get discoloured but not straight away. I replaced the retainers every Monday so it wasn’t really noticeable. When putting on a fresh pair I would be a little more careful but on a sunday long ride it didn’t matter.

The only thing I would say is, swish some water around your mouth after taking carb drinks/gels and brush your teeth after your workout. The retainers can trap the sugar against your teeth, which is bad.

Every 4 weeks or so the dentist gave my teeth a good going over so it was absolutely fine.

eating won’t work, as in physically. I once forgot I had them in and took a bite of something - had to remove them mid chew… its an odd sensation.

Don’t worry if you have them on for less than the 22hrs for the odd day. Like training consistency is key. A few hours here and there doesn’t hurt.

Good luck - I was 35 when I did it, honestly wish I’d done it sooner.

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So I checked with my buddy…he said he would either put them in the outside pocket on his cargo shorts or tuck them under the shorts themselves when he needed to eat on the bike. He would then pop them back when he was done.

For whatver that is worth…he also did SBT GRVL with them this year and, based on the fact he was dropping me on the final climbs, he was able to fuel properly during a 9 hour day. :woozy_face:

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I’ve had them. I wouldn’t worry too much about staining with carb drinks while you’re on the aligners; worst that happens is they get a little orange or whatever and probably a Retainer Brite tablet will take care of it. Since they’re replaced every two weeks it’s not a huge problem. You’ll want to clean aligner and mouth after the ride to avoid leaving sugar on your teeth of course.

Now that I’m on the retainers I’m more careful, but since I only have to wear them at night it’s not a problem.

I did this and spoke to my dentist. He told me to basically take a cheat week and leave them out while I was riding but then wear at night. Catch was that I repeated that week with the same aligners. Just extended my treatment a week.

I’ve been wearing ClearCorrect for a year now. Train indoors and outdoors 3-4 times a week, drinking either straight water or water/electrolyte mix and gels when outdoors. Everyone makes a huge fuss over not drinking anything with them in. If you can use a tooth brush, you’re golden. The orange electrolyte mix I have has colouring in it that stains clear bottles. I’ve just brushed off the trays after training in the shower with a tooth brush - zero stains. I have bigger issues removing plaque buildup over night to be honest, and that comes off pretty easily.

Yes I have spent most of the last year with Invisalign in. I used liquid gels and also tailwind in the bottles and it was fine.

I started wearing my retainers again to combat a little relapse but I can’t really do threshold and above with them as they hinder breathing. I don’t think it will make a big difference for the final results i tried drinking with them too but the drinks get under them and that seems like a recipe for caries