5th trays & my 1st Oops!

Now, for my 1st Oops!

I had been warned about it from my ortho, Trish, and everyone else with Invisalign: "BE CAREFUL ABOUT THROWING OUT YOUR TRAYS BY MISTAKE IF YOU HAVE THEM BALLED UP IN A PAPER NAPKIN!!"

Of course it had to happen to me at least once. Luckily, it happened on the very last day of my trays, so there was little of any harm done.

Again, no problems whatsoever with this set. I can't believe how quickly time is flying by with this treatment! I love it! I know I'm not going to see real results until the last 4 sets of trays, but it's still really exciting that I'll be about halfway done with my treatment at the beginning of the year. We all know how quickly the holidays go by, and the holiday season is definitely upon us.

Going on a tangent.....I love Christmas -- it's my birthday (besides someone else's....what was his name again? lol), so I'm totally into it. But, some people (like our neighbors) are TOO into it. It's not even Thanksgiving and they have ALL their Christmas decorations up. And I mean all. One has a bay window in the front of their house, where they proudly display their all white Christmas tree, which is very nice, except for the ROTATING BASE UPON WHICH IT SITS AND SPINS. I kid you not.

The day after Thanksgiving, our neighborhood turns into Disneyland with all the lights people put up. It's a major competition around here. My husband and I decided we'd do something different from the rest of the neighbors the first year we moved here, and love our decision. We got a GIANT 8 foot wreath that goes around our door! Yes, you have to walk through it to get through the front door.

Here's a picture of it with our furry American Eskimo son, Atka:


Adorable, isn't he? Anyway, I can't wait for Thanksgiving to be done and over with, and am looking forward to a nice and quiet Christmas and New Year's this year!

Back to my teeth. Here 's what they look like after the 5th tray:

Center, mouth agape:


Top:


Bottom:


Smiling:


Hope everyone has a happy and safe Thanksgiving!

4th trays

After the end of my 4th trays, I was able to get my next 4 sets from the ortho while they did an intermittent checkup of my progress. So far, so good. The ortho told me he was looking for a nice tight tight fit, and that it would help to bite down a few times a day to make sure the trays are where they should be.

Since I've been applying that towards my trays, I've found that they definitely "settle" into their new positions MUCH more quickly. What a difference some grinding makes! It didn't hurt that work was pretty stressful for me lately, and gave me a reason to grind my teeth in order to figuratively bite my tongue :)

My ortho and the girl who works there with similar dental issues to mine were really surprised that I had started a blog. I promised them a link, so hopefully they'll be reading about themselves and about my experiences on here. Hi Dr. Sargiss and Trish! :)

Some of the concerns I had about my treatment were answered by Trish this time. I was worried about my bite aligning properly after all was said and done. She said no problem, it all works out in the end, and that it was something Dr. Sargiss had ensured with Invisalign before he approved my treatment as well.

The other concern I had was about my crossbite. Eventually, the tooth that had been behind the other teeth will be pushed over to the other side. There will be a time, however, when this tooth will neither be behind the other teeth, nor in front of them, but right on top of them. With the trays in, it's impossible to hit your teeth against each other, but what happens when I take them out to eat? Is this going to become a major problem for me? How do I chew if this tooth may be getting in the way?

Trish said it was going to be rough period when that happens, and that I'll just have to be extra careful during that time. She said it happened to her while her company was having their Christmas party, and it was painful to eat at the party because she kept on banging her teeth against each other. She said she went through a period of about 3 weeks before it finally made it "to the other side" completely. Ouch! I'm already getting a taste of it, because that tooth of mine is already moving closer to the front, and there are times when I catch myself wincing a bit when my teeth clash with each other. I'll just have to be more careful about it when it really starts to happen.

So, here are the pictures of my teeth after my 4th set!

Center with mouth agape:


Top:


Bottom:


Smile with bottom teeth showing:

3rd trays

My 3rd trays have been pretty uneventful. The great thing is that my tongue didn't get scratched up! Before I put them in, though, I ran my finger along all the edges to see if I could feel any rough spots right away. If I did, I was actually able to kind of scratch it away with just my fingernail. All in all, though, this was a great set. No problems whatsoever. The pressure and "itching" I felt with the 1st tray was hardly there.

A few things I've noticed, though. My teeth have pretty much moved to their positions after the very first night. All the nights after that seem to be more focused on getting the teeth to stay there instead of trying to revert back to their original positions, and giving them the rest they need in order to build the bone back up.

The other annoying thing in the spit collecting inside the trays. I literally have to suck it out intermittently throughout the day. How gross is that??? Sometimes, I can even hear myself doing it, and wonder if anyone else around me hears it, too! I had read that you salivate more at the beginning of trays because your body is trying to get used to a foreign object in your mouth that might be food, but maybe I'm just a prolific salivater (is that a word?). I don't want to call myself a drooler, because I like to think I'm not (except when I see, smell, or think about food, which is alot), but maybe I'll have to surrender to that term for now.

One of the reasons why I try to suck out the spit in the trays is because it seems to make for a better fit around my teeth. The other reason is because the spit collecting inside the trays looks gross, and I don't want people talking to me to be distracted by something gross happening inside my mouth. I think that's a fair expectation to have -- to not be grossed out by something inside someone's mouth, don't you?

By the way, I've given up completely on trying to cheat at snacking on chocolate with the trays in. It just doesn't work, and it makes my trays incredibly yucky afterwards. Even if I brush, which is really difficult to do at work when you just ate one piece of chocolate, the trays themselves get funkified alot easier, and Efferdent only doesn't cut it when it comes to cleaning. Lazy me has decided to just lose weight temporarily during my treatment and pig out more during mealtimes instead. I also started to supplement my diet with Ensure again, so that I don't lose too much weight. That could be dangerous for someone my size! Besides, my husband hates it when I start looking gaunt, which can happen within a mere 3 pounds of weight fluctuation with me. He says I look sickly, and I certainly don't want to be viewed as sickly!

Enough chatter. Here's what my teeth looked like at the end of Tray 3!

I left my mouth slightly agape so you can get a better idea of how crooked my little guys are on the bottom:


Top:


Bottom:


Smile with bottom row showing:

2nd trays

My 2nd trays have definitely been the worst so far in terms of pain. Not pain from my teeth being sensitive, but pain from my tongue getting sore.

The area at the bottom center of my bottom trays usually catches the underside of my tongue somehow, and this tray was relatively brutal. I had a sore for days, and was lisping badly because I was trying to alter the way I talked to avoid contact in that area. Funny thing is, one of the girls at the ortho's had forewarned me about the 2nd tray being the worst.

She had been the one giving me my free consultation, and coincidentally enough, had similar dental problems to mine. She was also going through an Invisalign treatment, and was nearly done. It was great to be able to talk to someone who understood on that level what kind of treatment I would most likely be going through. She and I were able to relate to each other in many different ways, so it was a nice bonus. She was definitely right about alot of the experiences so far!

So here are what my teeth looked like at the end of the 2nd set of trays. Notice I'm posting this now, in November, when I ended my 2nd set back on October 4th. Yes, I've been extremely busy and haven't had the time to pay attention to my blog. Better late than never, though!

Front center showing top and bottom:


Upper:


Lower:


Normal smile:


Not much movement so far, but I know they're working my back teeth first in order to make room for all the ones in the center that are crooked and need space to get straight.

My little secret unveiled

I had decided from the very beginning that I wasn't going to tell anyone about my Invisalign trays (except for my husband), testing to see if anyone would notice. My chance to try it out on my mom came about a week and a half after I had gotten my 1st trays.

We went over to her house for dinner, and talked and talked for a while before that. Right before we started to eat, I excused myself to go to the bathroom to remove my trays, and discreetly put them back in afterwards with no one noticing.

Finally, before we left that night, I told her I had something I wanted to show her. When I pointed them out to her, she was really excited, but mostly relieved. RELIEVED?? Yes, relieved. She admitted that she HAD noticed something a little odd about my teeth right from the start, but couldn't pinpoint what it was. She said that she actually thought that, get this, I hadn't brushed my teeth in days, because the spaces between my teeth were so close together that she thought I must have had all this gunk stuck in between them. ?!?!?!?! I have to say, I did know what she was talking about, because having the trays in does make your teeth less....outlined individually. But to think that it was the result of a total lack of dental hygiene? I'm not sure I would have jumped to that conclusion, but it was pretty hilarious nevertheless.

My husband thinks they just make my teeth look really wet, and therefore, unnatural in that way. However, he's still pretty astounded that they are so undetectable.