I finished my 6th & 7th of the 1st set (you read correctly - first set) of Refinement Trays without any incident. At the end, my bottom teeth were indeed more crooked, and needed some IPR (interproximal reduction - or filing down of teeth in between) to make room for those little front guys to face straight.
Before that was done, I asked Dr. Sargiss to remove the buttons on my top teeth since my younger brother's wedding was in a few weeks. YAY - they were OFF. No more funny faces from people when they catch glimpses of the buttons and try to figure out just what the heck they are. Finally. We both decided we were happy with the uppers. They were the best they were going to get without cosmetic surgery, so we had Invisalign make the thicker and sturdier retainer trays out of the last set of upper impressions in this set of Refinement trays.
I made another appointment to get the IPR and a new mold of the bottom teeth done. The IPR and new mold needed to be in the same appointment so that there was no further shifting of my teeth. There was no pain or anything when the IPR was done. No type of anesthetic (topical or anything) was needed, either. It just sounded alot worse (and smelled alot worse, since you get that smell of your teeth getting filed away) than it actually was.
Below are pictures of my teeth after Refinement trays 7. For the life of me, I can't find the pics I took of what they looked like after Tray 6, but they weren't very different from what they looked like in Tray 5 and Tray 7. I'll add a new post about the 2nd set of Refinement trays afterwards.
Front center full smile:
Center - mouth agape:
Uppers:
Lowers:
Different angle of lowers to emphasize the how crooked they got:
Left (good) side:
Right (bad) side:
