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: