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:
5 comments:
Hi Thy,
I am thinking of getting Invisalign and in doing some research, I came across your blog. I am wondering if you are now done with the treatment and if the refinement fixed all of your concerns? Also, if you don't mind my asking, does the "refinement" process cost more, or is it taken care of in your lump sum payment? If you could let me know, that would be great. It is really cool to read about a "real" person's experience with the treatment. I will continue to check your blog and see if you update, or you can email me andrea.wojtyniak@gmail.com.
Thanks for sharing!
- Andrea
Hi Andrea!
Thanks for visiting my blog. I'm glad it's come to some use, other than just my own entertainment :)
I just started my refinement, which is slated to last for 7 trays, or 14 weeks. We'll have to see whether or not all my concerns are corrected in the end or not. If they're not at the end of the 14 weeks, I can ask for another refinement, and another, and another, until I'm 100% satisfied. In fact, my ortho can do the same thing as well!
My ortho's plan had the refinement as part of the entire package. In fact, if we needed to go put traditional braces on me if the Invisalign wasn't working, that would be included in the cost as well. Whatever it took to get my teeth perfectly straight and to my complete satisfaction, would be included in the price. Of course, every ortho is different, so I'd make sure to discuss these things with yours.
Enjoy the updates I finally added, and let me know if I can answer anything else for you! :)
~Thy
Hi Thy!
LOVE your blog. My teeth were similar to yours, so I've been checking up on your blog regularly with each tray to compare my teeth's progress. :)
I'm almost done with my trays (on the 18th out of 20). I'm commenting on this post because I have the same problem as you did- my tooth that was the crossbite tooth is not fitting snugly into my aligners. Did you change aligners even though it never did quite fit snugly, or am I supposed to just keep them in longer?
Thanks SO much for chronicling your invisalign journey. =)
Hi Sarah,
Thanks for the compliments on the blog. I'm trying to get it up to date, so look for more posts soon.
I did continue to change trays even though they weren't fitting in snugly. The trays are still designed to help shift other teeth in your mouth, too, not just the one crossbite tooth.
I would, however, clamp down harder on the trays while they were in my mouth, just in case that would help with movement at all. Did I find it to help? Probably not, so it was more of a mental thing for me - lol.
Thanks so much for your prompt response! Your blog is so helpful to a LOT of people, and definitely the easiest blog to navigate through and most descriptive.
thank you thank you thank!
[and your teeth look beautiful! Invisalign should seriously pay you royalties... i think that this blog is much more effective in advertising than any ad they've done.. you should seriously contact them. haha!]
Post a Comment