Australian 46 Year Old Hoping for a Smile to Be Proud Of! Australia, AU

In the last 7 years my teeth have been making me feel self conscious as the overcrowding is becoming worse, when I look back at photos when I was 40, my teeth were fairly straight. All of my teeth are now pushing forward and the side molars are sinking inwards. The movement is continuing year by year, my hope is to have a nice set of straight teeth in the future after this treatment! It's taken me a long while to make this decision to go ahead with either Invisalign or something similar and I have chosen Clear Correct aligned.

On Wednesday I had my dental appointment to receive my next trays. At my initial appointment the receptionist told me that it would only be a five minute appointment so all I was expecting was to collect my next couple of sets of aligners. When I arrived I was told my 'buttons' we're going on today....I felt nervous!
Just to go back to my previous appointment when I had my first tray fitted.....I was so focussed on the new feeling of my aligners in my mouth for the first time and squeezing against my teeth, I for got to ask about EVERYTHING and I left with many questions which didn't materialise until the following morning....
I forgot to ask how many sets of aligners I had ( although my doctor said that my treatment would take just over a year). He did say that I would wear each set for 3 weeks ( because I am older it would take longer for my bone to regenerate and move so 3 weeks per set was the best way to go) and I would get 'buttons' which would act as 'keys' in helping to rotate my teeth over time and assist with the gentle movement made by each tray, most importantly, it was imperative to use the chewies to 'seat' my alligners in the correct position in the first four days of each new set and that I would have 'shaving' within the first three months.
So....second appointment I found out that I should expect to have 19 sets of aligners...happy with that having looked at many posts on here with 30+ particularly on Invisalign posts. Oh speaking of that, I've had a number of moments when I have felt that I haven't researched enough..... As I said before, when asked by my dentist which treatment I would prefer and having him say both Invisalign and clear correct should give similar results, being of Scottish heritage it came down to dollars. Clear Correct got my tick! I'm thinking that by not investing in the name and sacrificing a superb 3D polished picture show of my treatment from start to finish for a sheet of A4 paper with 8 maps of my expected tooth movement, saved me Au$1000, initially I felt fine with that.
Now that I am addicted to reading other people's post on Realself.com I'm noticing the %s of happy customers and Invisilign certainly comes out on top....time will tell...... I hope I am lucky.
Anyway...where was I? Oh yes, my buttons.... So a rubber ring was squashed into my mouth and polishing, them glue then buttons, only on For teeth, none of them the front top or Botton 4, and they are tiny....nothing at all to worry about :)

So the set three were super tight and my bite felt thick and different, I'm 2 days in now and having had to get them in and out by dragging them out with floss as my thumb nails are all ripped and soft, all is going well. As I have struggled so much with my speech and lisping for the past six weeks, today I can honestly say that at work I (for the very first time) I forgot they were in YAY! Anyone else struggling out there with speech....stick with it.

Just a very quick update as not a lot is happening worthy of reporting (which must be a good thing in terms of pain and suffering!). I went to my dentist last week and received set 5 and 6 and again, three weeks of wearing each. The only comment I have to make is that after the initial tightness of set 5, a few days in and I am feeling localised pressure on one lower tooth which makes me feel that I'm progressing...nothing noticeable to look at yet but I will update a new pic in daylight in next few days. So for now, all good and I'm secretly excited that I'm nearly 1/4 way through. Oh and found out that I should expect shaving of one tooth when I receive set 11, in a few months time.