Long Process About to Start - Cairns, Australia

Glad to report I no longer have the buttons and bands though the problem with the one incisor tilting sideways is persisting. The new strategy is to use 'aligner chewies' which are little rolls of polyurethane foam which you chew on to help the aligners sit more snugly on the teeth. I hope this works to get that maverick tooth under control! Next assesment in two weeks, so we'll see.

I had a check up last week and the orthodontist was not happy with the way the aligner was fitting on the upper central incisors so I now have some additional buttons on the backs of these teeth and elastic bands round to the front of the tooth. Not much fun at all - I can get one elastic attached no problem but the other always takes me several attempts, and the buttons make it very difficult to chew successfully. Hopefully these buttons are a temporary measure which will be removed next week; after 10 days the teeth do seem to be fitting better into the aligner though one is twisting more than I would like; again I hope this is a temporary movement bought about by the aligners not quite sitting properly. Also I find the bands on the back of my teeth affect my speech quite significantly - a bit annoying as I am doing some teaching at the moment. The bottom aligners are still going well, and I am very happy with the way the arch is widening and the teeth are lining up there. One downside of the extra attention to the top aligners is that the syncing of the aligners is now out - I am up to 15/40 on the top and 17/43 on the bottom - probably to be expected as we never know until we start just how our teeth are going to respond to the treatment. New photos will be taken towards the end of next week so I will put them up then.

I got my attachments, (9 of them) a few weeks ago, which gave me a hard time for a couple of days but they are OK now. It was hard to get the trays out when I first had them fitted, but I soon developed the knack of starting at the molars and working round as others have suggested. A couple of the attachments were also quite sharp so my cheek felt lacerated for a couple of days but eventually settled down. From aligner #10 I have a pontic lateral incisor on the right side to fill the gap made by the movement of the teeth - I have never had a lateral incisor on that side and my orthodontist felt I was better to make a space and gain an implant rather than remove the exisiting lateral incisor. Having this gap makes me very self conscious about having the aligners out, so eating in public is something I now do reluctantly. On the upside, I am happy with the way the teeth are looking with the aligners in, which is an added incentive to wearing them. I am still using the Acceledent and vary the length of time I wear the aligners according to the orthos advice, usually between 10 - 14 days depending how well the aligners are sitting. Noone knows that I am wearing them unless I tell them, and I find even the attachments are more discreet than I had expected - I was worried that I was going to have one right in the front but that turned out to be a 'power ridge' in the moulding of the aligner. So I am happy to say that I am almost 1/4 way through the treatment and pleased with the results so far. Probably the only thing that I don't like is the inability to sample things while I am cooking - it is a pain to go through the cleaning process just for a taste! Also if I do take the aligners out for a leisurely coffee on weekends I have to set a reminder to put them back in! I will add some photos shortly.