Six Common Problems With Bites That Invisalign Can Address

A bite problem — a malocclusion — is where the upper and lower teeth do not meet as they should when the jaw closes.

Most people come in talking about how their teeth look. That is a perfectly good reason to do something. But a bite that does not meet properly can also make teeth harder to clean, wear them down unevenly, and in some cases make the jaw ache.

Invisalign is one option for mild to moderate misalignment. The aligners are clear, and they come out to eat and to brush — which is the practical difference most people notice against fixed braces. You should expect them to feel tight for a day or two after each change. That is the treatment working, and it settles.

1. Crossbite

A crossbite is where some upper teeth sit inside the lower ones instead of outside them. It can be genetic, or it can follow childhood habits. Left alone it tends to wear the affected teeth unevenly and can push the gum back on the tooth taking the pressure.

2. Crowded teeth

Crowding is simply too little room for the teeth you have, so they overlap. It matters beyond appearance: overlapping surfaces are difficult to clean between, and the places a brush cannot reach are the places decay and gum inflammation start. Aligners move crowded teeth gradually into the space available — and where there genuinely is not enough space, that is a conversation about what else needs to happen first.

3. Gaps

Spacing is the opposite problem: teeth smaller than the jaw they sit in, or a gap left by a tooth that is no longer there. If the gap is from a missing tooth, closing it with aligners is not always the right answer — sometimes the better plan is to replace the tooth with an implant or a bridge and keep the others where they are. Which of those applies is the first thing to work out.

4. Open bite

An open bite is where the front teeth do not meet at all when the back ones do, leaving a gap you could see through. It makes biting into food awkward — sandwiches, apples, anything that needs a front-tooth bite — and it can affect speech.

5. Overbite

An overbite is where the upper front teeth cover the lower ones too far. A small overlap is normal and healthy. A deep one can wear the lower teeth down and, in some cases, means the lower teeth bite into the roof of the mouth.

6. Underbite

An underbite is where the lower teeth sit in front of the upper ones. Mild cases can sometimes be improved with aligners. Where the cause is the position of the jaw itself rather than the teeth, aligners are not the answer, and you should be told that plainly rather than sold a course of treatment that cannot deliver.

When aligners are not the right answer

Clear aligners are not a fix for everything. Severe misalignment, significant jaw discrepancies and some rotations are better treated another way, and some mouths need gum treatment or a filling dealt with before any tooth is moved at all. Moving teeth through an unhealthy mouth makes the underlying problem worse, not better.

The honest version is that you cannot tell from a photograph or from a list like this one. It takes an examination.

What happens if you want to look into it

An assessment with Dr Simon Azimi covers what is actually going on with your bite, whether aligners are a sensible option for it, roughly how long it would take and what it would cost. If aligners are not right for you, you will be told so.

This post was published in February 2021 and rewritten in September 2026. It is general information about bite problems, not advice about your own teeth — for that, you need someone to look at them.

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