My Interproximal Reduction (Shaving Tooth Enamel)

How Your Dentist Determines You Need Interproximal Reduction

The process of shaving tooth enamel is called interproximal reduction. In this post I describe the process and the details of my experience. If your teeth are crowded like mine, you may need interproximal reduction as part of your Invisalign treatment. It's not always an option though. Some dentists choose to remove teeth to make room - which is far more painful and requires recovery time. If your dentist wants you to remove teeth to make room, you may want get a second opinion.

In my case, the dentist told me he'd rather avoid removing teeth and instead choose to shave the enamel of teeth on the top and bottom. Talk about dodging a bullet! My treatment currently calls for 7 reductions of .5 millimeters on the top and 7 reductions of .2 millimeters on the bottom.

What happens when you get Interproximal Reduction

I wasn't able to get pictures when I had my reductions done, but I compiled some pictures I found online to give you an idea of what happens. Different dentists will use different tools, but the process is generally the same. My dentist used diamond strips, which are ultra thin and slide between the teeth. Once the diamond strip is between your teeth, the dentist will slide it back and forth to shave the tooth. It kind of works likes a cheese grater, which sounds gross, but it's not painful at all.

Diamond strips

I highly recommend asking your dentist for a local numbing agent on your gums. Depending on how steady of a hand your dentist has (and probably how crazy the angle is they have to work at) the only thing that will hurt is getting your gums slices by the diamond strip. It kind of feels like a paper cut anywhere the strip slides over on your gums/flesh. I had minimal issues when I had the bottom done.

To ensure the correct amount has been taken off of your teeth, your dentist will slide a gauge key into the space between the teeth. The space you need created totally depends on your plan. An example is shown below, note again these are not my teeth.

Gauge set

My Interproximal Reduction

Below are the pictures showing where I've had reduction on my bottom teeth. It's not a huge difference, but you can definitely tell when you look at my before and after pictures from my progress page.

Interproximal Reduction on bottom

I can see that some of the attachment glue got shaved off on a couple of the teeth in the close up above, but it's not noticable in person. Let me know if you have questions.