Great Experience with Invisalign (For Crossbite) - San Francisco, CA

I needed to have my 1 tooth crossbite fixed - not only for aesthetic reasons but it was affecting the health of the rest of my teeth. I had a traumatic bite which caused neighboring teeth to the crossbite to have enamel chipped off.

My dentist who is also one of the best orthodontists in the country and a close friend of mine recommended Invisalign as the best solution for me.

I expected my first aligners to be a bit painful but they were just a bit tight and overall no problem to wear. My invisalign is literally invisible - just makes my teeth look shiny :)

Nobody noticed although I have been bragging to all my friends about them :)

I am only in the beginning of the treatment and will let you know how it goes after the expected 10 months. My dentist said it is common to need some minor adjustments at the end of the 10 months - which is fine with me.

I forgot to mention I am 25 years old and currently am at the end of my 1st week of treatment. So far I am very happy with the process. I am having my buttons put in tomorrow (3 on the bottom and 1 on the top) and also will have my teeth filed.

I am a bit nervous about the teeth filing and will keep you updated about how that goes. In my case it is really necessary because there is just not enough space in my mouth for my teeth as is and my dentist said they wll only do some minor filing. The filing will mostly be on my bottom teeth which are very crowded.

So today I got my buttons in 1 on top and 3 on bottom. My dentist made them lighter color than my teeth because I just started whitening them - this way they will match my teeth when they become whiter too. Visually the buttons are not obvious at all, at first they felt weird but a few hours later my mouth got used to them and are no problem at all. The only pain in the butt with the buttons is the getting the aligners off and on - buttons make it sooo difficult especially getting off part. But I'm sure I will get used to that too.

Today they also filed my teeth. I had dreaded having my teeth filed since I first considered starting Invisalign - but to be honest it wasn't bad at all. They dont just file down all your teeth - but little by little every few weeks or months - I can barely tell they did anything at all. It was painfree and was not drastic - so I'm pretty happy about that.

I also just started with 10% concentrated Nite White gel which I will keep for only a few hours a day in my aligners. I have sensitive teeth in general so am curious wether my teeth will start hurting from this whitening gel. I will update how my whitening goes as well.

Below are some pictures from my second week now with buttons and aligners on. I tried to get the camera as close as possible to capture the aligners and buttons - otherwise they are invisible. Nobody has noticed yet and my speech is perfect (on the very first day my "t"-s and "p"s sounded funky). All the photos I have uploaded so far are with aligners on.