Patricia Panucci, DDS

I never had braces as a kid, but my teeth were relatively straight. That is, until my wisdom teeth came in and now my top front teeth make it look like I'm the Wicked Witch of the West! I finally decided to bite the bullet and get Invisalign. Turns out I have a lot of issues besides my wonky top front teeth: sever crowding on the bottom, overbite, underbite and crossbite. I have a total of 53 trays (sad face) and my estimated time was about 2 and a half years with refinements. After having my first tray in for only a week, however, I caved and asked for Acceledent (because I'm a baby). It cost $1,000 through my orthodontist who is doing my Invisalign.Tray 1 was hard, not necessarily due to the pressure but because of the sharp edges of the tray and the feeling of all that plastic. (also not being able to snack!) I bought some dental wax and that fixed the sharp edges and I was cleaning them regularly with toothpaste but they still ended up smelly after the first week so I bought some Hydrogen Peroxide which worked wonders when mixed with water and used to soak my trays. Right now I'm on tray 2. Definitely felt more pressure but my lisp isn't as bad as the first, so that's a plus! However, my teeth feel way more sensitive. They feel quite tender and unstable. I'm assuming that's normal, but could use some reassurance. I'm having dreams that my teeth fall out haha!I get my attachments in the middle of next week, one attachment on each tooth except the front four (thank god!) PLUS elastics, ugh! Will try and post pictures and video soon. Updated on 18 Oct 2014: Here are the photos they took of my teeth at the initial consultation. Updated on 30 Oct 2014: Well tray 3 has sucked. I got my attachments put on and elastics on both sides. The attachments didn't hurt since my ortho filed them down. They haven't cut up my mouth or anything. I can feel them with my teeth when I eat which is uncomfortable but not painful. The elastics, however, are killing me. My jaw felt like it was locked and it was so painful. My jaw and sides of my face felt tired and achy. When I close my mouth I can't close it properly; my teeth meet in an uncomfortable position on the right side of my face and don't meet at all on the left so sleeping has been difficult because I can't find a comfy position for my jaw. Advil has definitely been my friend. Also, the tray was SO hard to get off my attachments. It was so painful, I was just standing there crying and it took me a good 40 minutes to get them off those first couple of days. I felt like I was ripping my teeth out. It got slightly better but still uncomfortable to take them off as the week wore on. I was able to take them out in about 5 minutes but it's just such a chore! I've lost some weight because I started skipping lunch. I was drinking a little bit of smoothies and swallowing bits of avocado whole. :( The Acceledent has been interesting. I can't say that I'm in love with it, but if it does its job then great. The 20 minutes seems sooo long, though. I feel like it vibrates my whole head. Everything I look at is slightly vibrating when I have it in so I can't watch TV or read because I get a headache. Afterward, my teeth feel a little numb but it goes away. Just switched to Tray 4 last night, hopefully it's not as bad as Tray 3 was and hopefully I start seeing some changes soon - that would be such a huge motivator! Updated on 13 Nov 2014: Updated on 13 Nov 2014: So I just posted a comparison pic between tray 1 and tray 5. So far, I'm not seeing any obvious changes. I can feel it but not see it. Tray 4 and 5 were a breeze. They went on and came off so easily which was such a relief after the nightmare that was tray 3. My discomfort with the bands seems to come in cycles. Some days, I feel like 'Yes, I'm finally used to it!' and then all of a sudden I'm back to having a slight twitch in my jaw, or soreness and achiness and headaches. Just switched to tray 6 last night. Once I clapped the bottom tray on I had a flash of pain on one of my teeth on the right toward the front. It's the one that I've felt the most movement on so far since it's pushed so far inward. I was scared to take it off today to eat, fearing that it would be a repeat of tray 3 so I skipped breakfast. Just took it off about 20 minutes ago, though, and while it was sore and slightly painful it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I know it's still early in the game but I just wish I was seeing a little bit of movement. It would be so encouraging. I'm just not looking forward to 11 more months of this. And, I'm a hypochondriac so I keep thinking I'm developing TMJ because of the soreness and twitching on the right side of my jaw. But I went back and checked the issues my dentist found at my initial consultation and it said that I had TMJ and a popping of my jaw on the right side, but since I never felt any pain I had never noticed. So is my feeling discomfort now mean it's correcting my TMJ? I hope so, because if I have a sore jaw even after completing Invisalign I'm going to be a very grumpy person. Ugh, I'm probably being morose and melodramatic since my period started yesterday. (Sorry to any dudes reading but, newsflash, periods happen) Please, people, tell me this is all worth it! :/ Updated on 10 Dec 2014: Well I got through Thanksgiving with these things in. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The last couple of trays have been suspiciously easy. I don't have soreness or twitching in my jaw anymore so it seems I've become used to the elastics. And I'm finally starting to see movement in my front teeth! I looked at photos where it looks up at my front teeth and look at it now and it's so noticeable how much straighter it already is! I think from my clincheck video that the front tooth finally gets pushed into position on tray 14 so I'm almost there. I change to tray 10 tonight and I'll try and post some pictures later. The only weird thing is, with this tray when I put it on last week everything was good - no crazy pain and relatively easy to take off. But now randomly in the last day or so some of my teeth have been really hurting. If my elastics are on the teeth on my upper right side (pretty much the teeth right around where the elastic hooks on) really hurt, especially if I lightly press my tongue on the back or bottom of the teeth. It's a sharp, consistent pain and even when I don't press against it, it's kind of a sharp achy feeling. And when I take off my bottom tray, the back left tooth feels sore, uncomfortable with a dull ache. Only for a little bit, but it weirded me out since prior to this, this tray gave me no problems. Usually, I'll experience pain the first few days of a new tray but I've never had pain pop up the last 2 days of a tray. Anyone else have this? Is the pain from invisalign just going to rear its ugly head every now and then randomly? Updated on 6 Jan 2015: Plugging away. Figured I'd upload some of the pics so far. These are from a couple of trays ago (ignore the gross, yellow filter). My front teeth are now straight and fully aligned with each other which is amazing. After tray 14, it's all about pushing my back teeth into position so my front teeth, both top and bottom, will get a rest. I got some filing done between my teeth today. Only on the bottom. It didn't hurt, although, at times it was uncomfortable. The emory board floss thing was weird but didn't make the screeching noise some other commenters mentioned. Updated on 25 Feb 2015: So I'm almost at the midway point. I've definitely noticed my overbite and crossbite improving. I've now started on the next phase of my treatment - the next 25 or so trays align my back teeth. Once those are aligned, the last 3 trays are all about moving my front teeth into their final position. It just seems like such a crazy amount of time! From my clincheck it seems like my back teeth move infinitesimally which has been good in terms of pain. I'm not really feeling any pain or movement except when I eat and even then it's only a little bit of soreness. Le sigh. I have been thinking lately that I want to whiten my teeth but am wary of doing so while I have attachments on. Does anyone know if whitening will look weird? Do the attachments just stay the same as your old tooth color and stand out even more?

I just got them on the other day, and although it was painful in some areas at first, I'm already comfortable wearing them. The entire process will only take 14 months, unlike braces which would probably take over 2 years. Also, in my case it was less than getting regular braces because I would have them on for a longer time. It's a bit annoying to take them off and put them back on every time you eat, especially in the beginning when they're really tight, but it's definitely worth it- I end up brushing my teeth 5 times a day (in my opinion that's a good thing) :D I can already feel the invisalign not as tight anymore, which means my teeth are already moving! impossible to tell that i'm wearing them. My friends didn't even notice until i pointed it out! Also, it's almost, my bite is different and it's definitely better than getting braces.