Let the Invisalign Adventure Begin! - Middleton, MA

Wow, did this month fly by! I'm sure you are all curious to find out how I had fared with getting my aligners off with the attachments on. Before we get to that, I want to tell you about something else that happened at my ortho's office the day I got my attachments. You see, I chose my orthodontist for his extensive experience with Invisalign and I actually have to drive pretty far to get to his office, which I don't mind because I want to be seen and treated by Dr. B. If that's what it takes, that's what it takes! However, when I came for my appointment that day, there was some other dentist or ortho, who seemed to be a bit of a newcomer to Invisalign (but not young, just fyi), and he looked to be doing kind of an "apprenticeship" there. All was fine and good as one of the assistants took care of putting my attachments on using a template -- that's what she does. But when she was done, I felt like a bit of the attachment material had seeped into the crack between two of my teeth, which she said happens -- she tried to get it out, and couldn't, so she called over this apprentice ortho to take care of that with his dentist skills. He did that...and all of the sudden, without asking me for permission, he turns to the assistant and says, "get me , looks like we need to do a bit of IPR here".

Omg, really? Now I hadn't mentioned this in my updates before, but at my first couple of appointments with Dr. B., I made it crystal clear that I would like to avoid any kind of IPR if at all possible -- and he understood and reassured me that these days Invisalign has come to the point that they don't need to do IPR much at all.

And anyway, if we absolutely have to do it, we would know this much later in the game, wouldn't we? Now, why would this IPR-happy apprentice ortho want to interfere with the Invisalign plan without consulting with Dr. B, or even discussing with me first? Well, because he wanted to practice some IPR, that's why! >:( I felt quite disrespected, it's my body after all, my teeth!

However, he did give me a useful tip, which saved me from fasting that first week after getting my attachments: make sure you have a warm mouth before you take your trays off. It's ok to drink warm water, and not just lukewarm, but VERY WARM water, sip just enough to soften the trays so that you can then pop them off the attachments. I have to thank him for that advice. I was a bit concerned about my trays warping, because only what I considered to be "as hot as still was drinkable" water would do the trick. I haven't needed to do that beyond the first week or so though, so all turned out well on that point.

In terms of tooth movement, one interesting thing that happened was that a space between my two big upper front incisors started to open up at the bottom -- something I had never seen before in my teeth! Ease of flossing varies over time, presumably because of changing distances between my teeth.

I will be moving on to TS5 tomorrow night. TS4 has felt quite a bit subtler than TS3, however I've felt soreness off and on in my one upper tooth that is crowded inward and the crooked incisor that occludes it, which was reassuring. Also felt ongoing pressure in my molars, especially the bottom ones.

I've been using Listerine Naturals (the clear version -- at a ratio of 1 capful of it to 2 capfuls of water) and a toothbrush to clean my trays once a day, and it does a great job. Vinegar 50% with water has worked well for me too.

I'm excited to see what TS5 feels like tomorrow night!

Just got my attachments today! Well, having read what other Invisaligners have written about how taking your trays off with attachments is like pulling teeth, I now know what you all mean! My big top left incisor has two attachments on it diagonally, and I think one of the upper side teeth has two as well -- my upper tray might as well be GLUED to these teeth. It's not coming off! It wasn't like this at first -- I was able to take it off, with some difficulty, at the ortho's office around 3pm, and then at around 8:30pm for a small rushed dinner. But now a couple hours later, I thought I'd grab a veggie snack before bed because my dinner was a bit short on that food group :P, but my upper tray is not budging from those teeth! After about 30 minutes of struggling, I gave up and decided it's not worth it since I wasn't starving.

To console myself, I googled for tips on easier removal with attachments -- someone wrote on their blog that every hour makes a difference. That gives me hope that tomorrow morning I might have a shot at breakfast :)

The attachments themselves are quite sharp, albeit polished, and I actually had a strange time trying to chew the lentil pasta that I had for dinner. My lips and inner cheeks kept catching on the attachments, and the texture of the pasta was such that it kept getting stuck around the attachments and affecting my bite. I had to chew slowly and carefully.

I also finally got to see my Clincheck, but not because they offered to show me -- I had to explicitly ask for it. I think the reason they withhold it is because, generally, the plan represented by this initial ClinCheck is likely to change down the road -- my ortho said he expects that around tray 25 we will have to do a re-evaluation which will change the plan and produce a new set of trays. That's just a side-effect of all this being based on a software model and the fact that the trays are based on projections far into the future and statistical models of how my teeth are expected to move. Of course, real life tends to deviate from statistical models, so that's completely understandable (to me). I think the ortho's concern is that some people might misunderstand the ClinCheck to be the ultimate plan and interpret any re-evaluations as failure on the ortho's part.

I mean, think about it -- if you have metal braces, you pretty much go in for a re-evaluation and adjustment every time you visit the ortho (how often is that? once a month or something?). So why shouldn't a re-evaluation be a normal part of the Invisalign process?

I've also attached pictures of the trays with the attachments on! The attachment bubbles in the trays would be clearer if I just took a picture of my trays alone, but that'll have to wait a bit ;)

Well, that's about it for this update, as I mentally prepare to fast...

Started Tray 3 on Thursday night before bedtime. It actually snaps on quite easily and comes off even easier than the first two trays did -- without a need to loosen at the molars. Despite this, I definitely feel a satisfying tightness in TS3 compared to the end of TS2, and I've been feeling subtle forces on various teeth over the last couple days. The downside: seven very visible "bubbles" sticking out of my teeth where my attachments will be, on my front upper teeth! :( The lower seven bubbles aren't very visible. But those upper ones look so weird! Oh well -- I keep telling myself that even though it looks weird, my teeth are getting straighter every day. My crooked teeth look even weirder as they've been, so I can deal with a few awkward bubbles on my teeth that look like stuck-on candy!

Felt just a little soreness, but not as bad as in TS1. Also, to note, flossing is getting very noticeably easier than ever -- the floss goes in and out much easier between all my teeth across the board.