Invisalign: Stories

I've had crooked teeth since I can remember. My parents couldn't afford braces when I was young. Several of my baby teeth never came out, and I am missing my top lateral incisors. I wore a retainer when I was 12 after they pulled most of my retained baby teeth, but they kept my top baby canines to fill in the space by my missing lateral incisors. I always hated my teeth, but eventually started to care less about it, though I remained self-conscious when I smiled.

Fast forward, I'm 32 and can afford braces. My baby teeth were still in place, but I (and my dentist) was concerned they'd eventually come out b/c they no longer had roots holding them in place. So I decided it was time to finally get my teeth straightened.

I knew I didn't want traditional braces, but as my teeth are really crowded, wasn't sure if I was a candidate for invisalign. I went to an elite preferred orthodontist, and he surprised me by saying I was a candidate! Hooray! But... I would need extractions. :/

I knew the baby teeth would have to go, otherwise whats the point... but in order to get my bottom teeth to line up with my top bite, two on the bottom would have to go. (Begrudgingly) I went to an oral surgeon and had my top baby canines and my bottom lateral incisors removed. Needless to say, I look very gappy and awful.

Fortunately the invisalign trays had pontics built in, but the missing teeth make me very apprehensive to remove my trays in front of others. One of the assistants in the office actually gave me the okay to eat with them in if needed, but I have to brush my teeth and the trays right afterwards very thoroughly. When I'm at home I take them out to eat, but if I'm at a work function or out with friends, I leave them in and just eat very soft room temperature foods. Its worked fine so far.

I'm on my first tray, 12 days in. I have 14 attachments, which made getting the trays out the first day extremely difficult. I also went in for the trays and attachments the morning after I had the four teeth extracted. What can I say, I'm a glutton for punishment. So not only was I in pain from the extractions, I was in pain from the attachments and the new trays. The first four days were pretty rough. On the second day the attachments on my front bottom teeth came off. D'oh. It made it a lot easier to get the trays off, but the attachments had to be reattached.

I still have a lisp. I think my coworkers have noticed that I'm talking differently, and the pontics look a little different from my original teeth. I'm really hoping as my teeth become more aligned that the lisp goes away.

I have 40 trays on top and bottom, yikes! My orthodontist has been trying to talk me into the acceledent, but I've already spent so much money as it is, I can't afford another grand. It'd be great to get it done in half the time, but I just can't justify the cost.

I use a timesheet app on my phone to track the time I'm wearing the aligners so I know when I hit 300 hours. I'm very eager to see some results. I have my next two sets of aligners, and those already look a little different. According to my clincheck I should see a noticeable difference around the 7th set, which is really exciting.

My ortho already warned me that I'd probably need further refining after the first 40 trays. He's been very good about giving me the facts and not sugar coating how this process will go, for which I'm very grateful.

So I'm moving onto tray 3 tonight. The second tray has been much easier than the first. I'm certain that most of the pain from the first tray came from the fact that my gums were still healing from the extractions. I put in tray two before I went to bed, popped some advil, and the next day only a few of my teeth felt tight, but definitely bearable.

I still have a bit of a lisp, which comes from the aligners, but I think its exaggerated by the fact that one of my front top teeth is a little longer than the other, and my bite doesn't close the same way that it did. So I'm hoping that as my teeth get more aligned, the lisp will improve.

I have talked myself into the acceledent. The gaps between my teeth, the way the trays look and the lisp make me so self-conscious. I dread going out to eat, I hate eating in front of anyone but my husband, b/c my teeth look so bad without the pontics. According to my clincheck, its not until about tray 18 that I'll feel comfortable having the aligners out. I don't think I can wait 9 months to be able to go out to eat. 4.5 months is a lot more doable.

I just had my first 6 week checkup, and everything is going well. I picked up the acceledent, and have been switched from 2 weeks to 7-8 days on each aligner. I'm so thrilled. I changed to my 4th aligner Tuesday night, used the acceledent that night, yesterday and today, and my aligners already feel loose. It definitely cut down on the pain and tightness. The vibrations from the acceledent are a lot lighter than I was expecting. My daughter has a vibrating teether, and I assumed the intensity of the vibrations would be more like the teether (which I have to admit, I used to ease some of the pain of new aligners, it helped ;) The only thing I don't enjoy about the acceledent is that the mouth piece is just a little too big for my mouth, I've been told before by my dentist that I have a pretty small mouth, and I assume the mouth piece on the acceledent was made to fit standard to large mouths. So it isn't an entirely comfortable experience, but its just 20m a day, and if it gets me out of my aligners faster, I'll do it.
I have noticed a slight change in my teeth, theres definitely a lot more space between them, which makes flossing easier. The pontics are getting smaller in each successive aligner, which is nice to see. Can't wait to be done with those, I look forward to being able to eat, without the aligners in, and not look like a toothless hobo. On set 6 my bottom aligners will have just 1 pontic instead of 2, thats pretty quick progress.
I find myself obsessive about brushing my teeth, which in turn means they look nice and white now :) I was always good about brushing my teeth before bed, rinsing in the morning and flossing, but now I'm brushing like 5-6 times a day! I don't mind it, hopefully I'll stay as good about brushing after meals when I'm done with invisalign!
I've posted a few more photos, I just put in aligner set 4 in these, so they are still fitting a little off, but you can see the pontics and the slight change in my teeth.

I just had my first 6 week checkup, and everything is going well. I picked up the acceledent, and have been switched from 2 weeks to 7-8 days on each aligner. I'm so thrilled. I changed to my 4th aligner Tuesday night, used the acceledent that night, yesterday and today, and my aligners already feel loose. It definitely cut down on the pain and tightness. The vibrations from the acceledent are a lot lighter than I was expecting. My daughter has a vibrating teether, and I assumed the intensity of the vibrations would be more like the teether (which I have to admit, I used to ease some of the pain of new aligners, it helped ;) The only thing I don't enjoy about the acceledent is that the mouth piece is just a little too big for my mouth, I've been told before by my dentist that I have a pretty small mouth, and I assume the mouth piece on the acceledent was made to fit standard to large mouths. So it isn't an entirely comfortable experience, but its just 20m a day, and if it gets me out of my aligners faster, I'll do it.
I have noticed a slight change in my teeth, theres definitely a lot more space between them, which makes flossing easier. The pontics are getting smaller in each successive aligner, which is nice to see. Can't wait to be done with those, I look forward to being able to eat, without the aligners in, and not look like a toothless hobo. On set 6 my bottom aligners will have just 1 pontic instead of 2, thats pretty quick progress.
I find myself obsessive about brushing my teeth, which in turn means they look nice and white now :) I was always good about brushing my teeth before bed, rinsing in the morning and flossing, but now I'm brushing like 5-6 times a day! I don't mind it, hopefully I'll stay as good about brushing after meals when I'm done with invisalign!
I've posted a few more photos, I just put in aligner set 4 in these, so they are still fitting a little off, but you can see the pontics and the slight change in my teeth.

So I'm on aligner 8 now. Its going along just fine, I'm down to three pontics, one of my lower spaces is too small for a pontic now, but its not too noticeable. This aligner hurt a little more than the last few, I noticed that this one is starting to move one of my bottom incisors back a bit, which is odd to see, but that seemed to hurt more than side-side or rotating movement. I put in this aligner set on Wed night, and by Friday afternoon the pain was gone, most noticeably after I did the Friday acceledent session, it really does help.
I can tell a big difference in my top incisors, they look a lot less crooked. Its nice to see some changes, tho they're still a little crooked, its definitely an improvement.
I'm still not very comfortable eating in front of others with the aligners out. There's a noticeable difference in my speech when I have the aligners out, the gaps between my teeth affect it a lot. I'm less bashful about brushing them in the public bathroom though.
I'll be on aligner 9 this coming Wed, (3/20), and I have my next appt with my ortho on the 27th, when I'll receive my next bundle of aligners. Hopefully they'll be happy with the progress and the movement from the acceledent, and it'll be a relatively uneventful appointment ;)

So far this is going well! I'm really glad I got the acceledent, I'm on tray 10 right now, going on 11 tonight. I feel the tightness for the first day, then after using the acceledent on the second day (i use it daily) the tightness is pretty much gone. I haven't needed to take any pain medication. Its also nice going week by week, it really feels like I'm making progress, not a slow slog to the finish line. I see a huge difference in my teeth, one of my lower gaps is closing up, and my top front teeth are nearly straight. If only they were the same length, it would look so much better. I'm wondering if the invisalign will correct that, or if the longer one will need a little shaving at the end. My lower front teeth are making some big movements, according to my clincheck, they're being moved backwards one at a time, so right now one is further back than the other, and will continue to do so for a little while.
I'm pretty used to them by now, I don't suck on them anymore, my lisp isn't as bad, tho still there a bit. I still eat with them in when I'm around other people, the gaps are still too obvious to expose to the world. I just stick with really soft foods, and them brush my teeth and the aligners right afterward. So far its working, tho I also have to consider the color of the food, b/c the food will get stuck under my aligners, and anything dark is pretty obvious. I've added new photos of me in aligner 10.

I'm on aligners 15 now. My bottom aligner no longer has any pontics, though you can see a bit of a gap where the most recent pontic has gone away. I'm hoping that gets closed up quickly. One of my bottom incisors is getting pushed back toward my tongue, while the other is staying in the same spot, so they're pretty uneven. Which makes removing the bottom aligner a little trickier now, I've had to pop the front off the attachments with a little more care now than I did before. I also had some rough edges that I had a hard time smoothing out, and it irritated the inside of my lips. I found rubbing some burts bees lip balm along the edge of the aligner helped _a lot_.

My top front teeth are getting a lot straighter, but now I'm noticing a new issue. One of my front incisors is longer than the other, and about 10 years ago I had it shaved down to be closer in length to the other. Fortunately my dentist at the time had the foresight that I would one day want to straighten my teeth, and didn't shorten it enough to be perfectly even, but did shave it straight across. Now that my tooth is straightening out, its being tilted to straighten out correctly, and the shave line is now crooked (does that make sense?) You can kind of see it in the photos I've attached. So the tooth is uneven in length, but not so short at the shortest edge that it cant still be shaved a little more to be made even with the other tooth. So by my dentist leaving a little length on it, I'll still be able to even them out, without having to shorten the other one to match. Its not too noticeable when I have the aligners on.

Added some before and afters at this almost-half point, because before and afters are fun :)