5th Refinement Trays

2 more trays left!! Yeah!!!!

Unfortunately, I see a little problem possibly occurring. My center lower incisors appear to be getting more crooked instead of less. ??? Will keep an eye on that and will let Dr. Sargiss know about it.

I also had a consultation with my regular dentist, Dr. Bocian, on the cosmetic things I wanted to have done. He took some macro pictures of my teeth, and plotted out their alignment in relation to each other on the computer. What he did was pretty cool, since I never thought about doing that before, even though I'm so careful about photographically documenting this process.


Center smile, mouth closed:

Center, mouth agape:

Upper:

Lower (see how crooked that right tooth got all of a sudden?):

Left side (I forgot to take a right side pic - DUH):

4th Refinement Trays

Halfway through this set of trays, I realized I was halfway done with my refinement period! Whoo-hoo!

However, I'm not really seeing too much progress, even in the pictures. I can't wait for this refinement period to be over. I certainly hope I'll be able to do all the final touches (whitening, veneers/bonding) before my brother's wedding at the beginning of October. I should be finished with all my trays a few weeks beforehand, so hope to have time to do everything else before October 6th!

Center smile:


Center, mouth agape:


Upper:


Lower:


Right side (looking a little better - unless it's just the angle I took it at):


Left side:

3rd Refinement Trays

Things are looking good. No major problems to report. Invisalign business as usual.

Center smile:


Center, mouth agape:


Ugly right side:


Pretty left side:


Top:


Bottom:

2nd Refinement Trays

Not much really to report on here, other than the process going pretty smoothly. Again, my teeth hurt like the dickens in the first couple days, but got a lot better afterwards.

I'm really self-conscious about my buttons. When I remove the trays, they're even more apparent, so I feel like I can't escape them, and that there's a flashing neon sign above my head with arrows pointing to the buttons, screaming at everyone to look at them. My coworkers assure me that they hardly notice them, and only do so because I'm drawing attention to them (isn't that always the case?), but I do make a point not to smile very wide in conversation, or, if I do, look away or down so they can't see me. Actually, I'll also smile with my lips closed, or will exaggerate a smile and turn it into either a laugh or an expression of surprise, both of which require my hand to cover my rudely open mouth. I'm fully aware of how ridiculous I'm being, but it's a great coping mechanism for now!

With such small movements, I honestly can't visually see the difference each tray is making, but I know it must be doing something because of the pain at the beginning of each new tray. Nevertheless, below are the results post-Refinement Tray # 2:

Center (full) smile:


Center, mouth agape:


Top:


Bottom:


Right side:


Left side:


Center (normal) smile:

At the end of the 1st Refinement Trays

OK, truth be told, even though this entry has a date of 8/25/07, I'm actually finishing the typing of this in October. The summer months have flown by, and with my brother's wedding, life has kept me extremely busy.

In short, my teeth hurt like heck for the first several days with these refinement trays, but here are the pictorial results:

Full center smile:


Center, mouth agape:


Upper:


Lower:


Right side (with my ugly Flintstone-rock-like crossbite tooth):


Closeup of right side button:


Left side:


Closeup of left side button:


What my teeth look like from the bottom looking up. Notice my center line being off, and how my right lateral incisor really just has its lower tip over the bottom teeth, while the incisor on my left side is firmly and completely over the bottom teeth:

More on the 1st Refinement Trays

OK, so the pain has subsided somewhat.

My front teeth are no longer incredibly sore, but my rear molars last night were really sensitive! It was odd, because by Day 3 of these trays, I felt like a million dollars. All of a sudden, on Day 4, my molars were sore to the point where it was ruining my appetite again.

Last night, I finally filed down that rear part of the tray that was bothering my tongue. Unfortunately, it looks like the mold for my back teeth didn't completely get my entire left rear molar, so the trays cover only half my molar. This is resulting in a not-so-smooth feeling against my tongue, no matter how much I filed down the area. I've tried wax in the past, but it only lasts for a few minutes, and then gets dislodged, so I don't think I'm going to bother. I'm hoping my tongue will just eventually get used to this new annoyance. I looked ahead at my next 3 trays, and confirmed that they all only cover half my rear left molar. Oh well.

I'm now on Day 5, and my molars are still slightly sore, but not as bad as the day before. It's much easier to pop my trays on and off now, but will never be as easy as it had been pre-buttons. I'm very self-conscious about them, and told everyone about them so that I didn't have to deal with wondering whether or not they were staring at the weird thing on my teeth ("Hey, you got some rice stuck on your teeth there -- yes, of course I'd say it's rice because you're asian - why else would I think you'd be eating anything else?" <-- sorry, I always have to stick in asian humor in here somehow) or not. Now, I know they know.

It's much more of a pain to pop my trays out for a quick snack during the day at work, so I'm once again starving. Aaaaa!!! The sacrifices I make! Oh, the agony!! :)

Refinement - 1st Trays - just the beginning

5 weeks after my last ortho visit, my Refinement Trays came in. I called to make an appointment, slightly nervous because I had a few business trips that required meeting new accounts and public speaking with training coming up. I had an inkling that I'd be getting buttons attached to my teeth, and wanted to see if I could hold off on getting the trays until after my trips.

I asked the girl on the phone if my teeth would be getting any modifications (buttons, IPR, etc.). She said, yes, 2 buttons. I literally groaned a big "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" into the phone, to her dismay. Plus, I was at the office, and behaviour like that could really attract some negative attention. Luckily for me, I already have the reputation for being very vocal about my feelings, so my whine was pretty much ignored by the rest of the nearby cubicle inhabitants within earshot.

Next question for her: how many trays did I have? 7. That meant 14 weeks. I quickly counted to see how close that would be to my brother's wedding, and saw that would put me just a few weeks right beforehand, so knew I couldn't hold off on getting them later since I planned on whitening them and possibly getting the one tooth bonded, too. Darnnit!!

I came in Friday, 6/8/07 to get my buttons put on and my 4 sets of refinement trays. Looking at my chart, the buttons were going on my 2 canines. At least they weren't going on my bicuspids, so they were a little less obvious on the canine teeth. Good! However, the buttons for refinement trays are square, not round or oval, so they're more obvious than other buttons I would have had during my initial phase. I should really stop complaining because I didn't have any buttons during my initial phase.

They put a "cheek spreader" into my mouth for self-titled reasons, which kept my teeth as dry as possible for the application. There was a separate tray just to put on the buttons. It was pretty cool. It was the same mold as my 1st set of refinement trays, but was super thin. The goop for the buttons was spread onto my teeth, the special tray was put in, and the goop was cured with a special blue light to have it shaped and hardened by the trays. The curing time was 30 seconds. Then, the trays came out, and I was allowed to rinse out my mouth with water and Listerine, b/c the goop tastes really terrible (almost like battery acid). Next, the ortho came over and filed away all the excess button goop.

Next, I tried on my 1st set of refinement trays. Holy COW they were hard to get in (because of the buttons)!! It took the ortho a while to get them in, too! My bottom ones didn't have any buttons, but they were really snug as well. I guess I was really used to not having snug trays for too long, b/c I forgot how tight these can be. The bottom trays almost felt like they were the tightest trays I had had to date, which is weird.

The top trays? OUCH! I was given instructions on how to take them out with the buttons, and went over to the mirror to practice taking them out and putting them back in before I was allowed to go home. I felt like a complete idiot. Getting them off was easier than I thought it would be, but it still felt like I was pulling out my teeth a bit. Putting them back in felt nearly impossible! It was like they weren't fitting or something, which I knew was not the case.

In the end, I wound up lining them up in the center first, and then pushing them on from the right rear and working my way around, all the while keeping slight pressure on the center so that it wouldn't move while I pushed around my mouth. I think I was initially afraid of pushing so hard to get the trays on my teeth b/c I thought they weren't going to fit, but I needed to realize that I just needed to use this amount of force for these trays now in order to get them on. Once I realized that, it wasn't a big problem.

I was forewarned that the buttons may come off, and if that was the case, to call the ortho to have them put back on.

Can I tell you? I'm in so much pain. So much more so than any of the other trays I've ever had. These buttons make these trays SO tight, and my teeth are incredibly sore and tender. With some other trays, I had this for the 1st day or so. It's now nearing the end of Day 2 with these trays and my teeth are still sore. It ruined my appetite, and even disturbed my night of sleep. I don't even have to be doing anything, and my teeth hurt. I know!!

Granted, most of my other trays have been introduced to my teeth at night, so that I was able to take 2 Advil and have them get used to the tightness for 7-8 hours while I slept away any pain. I think the fact that I started out with these trays in the morning and couldn't sleep away any pain (I did take 2 Advil) definitely exacerbated the problem. By the time I went to bed last night, the pain was very much on the forefront of my mind, and I wasn't able to sleep away and forget any pain I was feeling.

Like the other trays, the edges were mostly smooth, but the molding by my left rear molar doesn't cover my molar completely, and the edges there are a bit rough and have been making that part of my tongue a bit sensitive. I thought it was a different part of the tray, and filed away at that part, and didn't realize it was the most rear part until pretty much right now. I'll be taking care of that shortly.

These trays definitely fit MUCH better than my 16th trays did, though. I guess it makes alot of sense that they do, since the 16th trays were made based on a estimate of where my teeth would be, and not really where they currently are. This Refinement Tray 1 was made more on where my teeth currently are. So remember that gap on the trays above my crossbite tooth? Gone. The trays fit all my teeth like a glove now. Unfortunately, it still currently feels like the same glove OJ Simpson tried on in court ;)

I've been dreading taking them out to eat. It hurts so friggin badly!! However, now that it's after midnight on Saturday, and I've taken out my trays to eat dinner and have put them back in, I can say that the pain is starting to lessen now. Finally!

16th Trays and a Refinement Conversation

OK, truth be told, I haven't posted to my blog in over a month. It's currently Saturday, 6/9/07, and I had gone to the ortho on 4/30/07 for my last "initial phase" visit.

To be honest with you, I don't really recall anything particular about my last set of trays, other than the fact that my teeth didn't really move much more from my 15th trays. The difference with these trays, however, is that I got to see my ortho after I was done with them.

Armed with printouts of my blog with all the pictures of my teeth, with problematic areas highlighted and circled, I discussed what I wanted to see fixed in my refinement period. I got some more pictures taken (which I'll post below), some new molds created, and notes were taken on everything both I and my ortho wanted to see happen with my next set of trays.

When I told my ortho my concerns about my crossbite tooth sitting at an angle and jutting out with the root still way back, he said Invisalign wasn't strong enough to move roots. He basically explained that my tooth will never look the same as the opposing tooth because of the fact that it's developed its whole life behind the other teeth and not in front, so it doesn't have the same shape/size as the opposing tooth. Only cosmetic dental procedures can fix that. He said he can have Invisalign move my tooth out more, but that it wouldn't give me the effect I was looking for.

So, I decided that, after my refinement in done and I'm completely satisfied, I'm going to get my teeth whitened, and then maybe get that tooth bonded. I have to talk it over with my dentist, but I think bonding doesn't file away your tooth like veneers would -- it was just add to the existent tooth -- which is what I need. I need to build it up more towards the top. I understand that bonding doesn't last as long as veneers would, but that's OK. I think this is what would make me really really happy in the end.

I was told the turnaround time for this would be about 4 weeks. It wound up taking 5, and I'll go over my next experience with all that in my next post.

Onto the pictures! These will all be in Before and After style, from before I started my treatment, to after my 16th and last trays in my initial phase.

Center smile:



Upper:



Lower:



Right Side:



Left Side:



Full face smile:

15th Trays & some concerns

OK, again, not too much movement with these trays. I'm actually REALLY happy now that I'm getting refinement trays. I know initially I had wanted to be completely done with this by April 30th, but if that had been the case and we stuck to it, I would have wound up with not completely straight teeth.

One detail that concerns me is that my crossbite tooth isn't snug by the front of the trays. I'm not sure if Invisalign purposely did it this way for some strange reason, but it appears that the back of the tooth isn't getting moved much further, but there's quite a gap between my crossbite tooth and the front of the tray in that area. I'd think that, either the tray should have formed itself more closely to the tooth, or Invisalign should have been pushing the back of the tooth more towards the front so that it would be more snug towards the front.

In addition, when the trays are taken out for me to eat, etc., my bite is still very off. It feels like my bottom center teeth are too close to my upper front teeth, and as a result, my molars aren't able to line up with each other. My jaw aches a bit when my trays are out because it feels like I've developed a slight overbite.

On my right side, my bottom molars have some distinguishable spaces between them. All the rest of my teeth are pretty tight, but there are 3 molars where the floss is able to super easily glide in between them with hardly any tightness.

A sneak peek at my 16th trays shows that there's really not much more movement to be expected by my crossbite tooth nor my bottom center teeth. Upon careful examination, it looks like my crossbite tooth may need to get twisted a bit AND pushed out further, and my right center tooth may need some twisting as well. Thank goodness I'm keeping this blog so I can really come with a laundry list of concerns and requests for my ortho when I see him next.

I can't believe that tomorrow night, I'll be putting on my last set of active trays. My last set!! I clearly remember the start of this whole process, and 16 trays seemed like such a long time away. The time has now arrived.

Oh, on another note...my gumline by my crossbite tooth has started to detach from the tooth. I hope this will clear the way for it to recede as well, because my smile is still visibly more lopsided because of this. You can't actually see that it's detaching, but when I use a dental pick to get at any tartar, I'm able to easily stick it underneath my gums and almost even lift a corner of it up a bit. Sorry for the gross visual. Hey, it's a blog about TEETH, so it's not like you were expecting prettiness, were you? :)

Anyway, here are pictures of what my teeth look like right now.

Center smiling:


Mouth agape:


Lower (still not as straight as I thought they would be by the end of my second to last set of trays):


Upper:


Crossbite side (I hate how my tooth looks like an ugly jagged little rock AND is angled out so severely!):


Opposite of crossbite side (look how much prettier this bicuspid is compare to the problematic one!):


Crossbite side looking up from below (see how it's mostly just the tip that's over the bottom teeth?):


Opposite of crossbite side looking up from below (notice how much this bicuspid is over the bottom teeth - check out that gap compared to the picture before!):


Looking up from below so you can see how the 2 biscuspids differ in position. Also, check out my center line. Yikes! It used to be perfect. Now, where my 2 front teeth meet does NOT line up with where my 2 center bottom teeth meet. In fact, both upper and lower center lines appear to be slightly angled in opposite directions as well. NOT good....


You can really see a difference between the way the 2 bicuspids are positioned in this picture:


Wanted to show you what my teeth look like with my trays in now that they're straighter. Do you see, however, that my crossbite tooth isn't touching the bottom of the mold like the rest of my teeth are?


With trays in, mouth agape:


Looking down from above. You can really see here how there's a significant gap in front of my crossbite tooth compared to the rest of my teeth.


And a normal smile with the trays in: