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Post-contouring photo
Completion and Final Perspective
I had all of my attachments removed on my final official day of treatment, and I thought I would have contouring done that day and be fitted for a retainer, but it turned out that there was another miscommunication from my dentist's office, and the contouring/retainer fitting had to be scheduled at another visit. And... he had no open appointments for almost two more weeks. As a result, I had to wear my final set of aligners for almost four weeks, and they are really not meant to hold up well for that long (discoloration, peeling, cracking). I finally got an appointment and had an hour or more of bonding and sanding my front two teeth and filing the two next to them to try to make it look even now that my teeth are positioned differently. The way my teeth looked with bottom edges filled in and completely horizontal rather than angled was actually startling to me the first time I looked in the mirror while it was being done. The image in my head did not exactly match the reality of having front teeth of a completely different shape in my mouth. They looked huge at first and needed to be filed down quite a bit. I am 95% pleased with those results (95% seems to be my number here!).
I have an Essix retainer (or its equivalent), and I wish the Invisalign aligners would have been as invisible as this thing is! It covers more of the teeth and gums (and a bit of the hard palate), but it is basically impossible to see and minimally affects speech. It is tough to remove, however. My dentist told me that I could go right into only wearing it overnight, unless it felt snug when I put it on at night, suggesting that my teeth were shifting. I think it feels snug every time I put it on, so I have been wearing it about 16-18 hours per day. I'm more careful not to drink anything but water with the retainer in because I don't want to discolor it. One thing I had not expected was that the retainer made my teeth VERY sore for about a week, especially the last molars. As soon as I got the retainer, I went back to my regular dentist and ordered some Opalescence whitening gel, which can be used inside the retainer in the most awesome (and cheap) way.
Overall, I am 95% satisfied with the process and results of Invisalign. The worst part of it for me was that the attachments were very visible, in my opinion, and made me feel so conspicuous that I might as well have been wearing ceramic braces. I didn't smile normally at people for months. Also, it slightly over-rotated one front tooth and didn't completely correct the second tooth that began as my most crooked one. I realize that I could easily have gone on with a few months of refinements and made them perfect, but I was a bit disappointed that being a compliant patient in wearing the aligners as directed with all of those crazy attachments didn't get me all the way there. I did find the aligners to be easy to use, and the process was fairly short (7-8 months). And I'm happy with the retainer.
Last day of official treatment
Provider Review
Dr. Raisch has a great chairside manner and a practice that runs smoothly and effectively considering how many appointments are going on simultaneously. I never waited more than five minutes to be seen. The cost of treatment was probably slightly higher than average for the region, but it included refinements/contouring and retainers, and they facilitated no interest financing for the part of the cost I didn't pay up front. The office is very lovely, high tech, and located near my house. The treatment worked fairly well. Dr. Raisch has done lots of Invisalign and is adept at stepping in and doing IPR as needed during treatment. My only problem was that we had several miscommunications. I thought I knew what to expect at an appointment, but it turned out that I was occasionally very wrong. At the initial consultation, I thought we were talking about aligners for my upper teeth until I got the estimate at the front desk for upper and lower aligners. The estimate assumed more benefit from my insurance than I was able to get, so I ended up with an additional $300 bill that I hadn't expected (not under their control, I know). I was not told how long my treatment would last or shown ClinCheck graphics, although I figured out treatment length at home by looking at the aligner bags. I had NO idea at all about the attachments until I went to a recheck appointment and was prepped for them, and I was so upset not to have been forewarned that I almost bailed on treatment right there. We had an end date set for treatment, involving contouring and retainer fitting that day, but it turned out not to fit into the schedule (I absolutely would have scheduled it for another day had I known it!). I was stuck waiting in my last set of aligners for 4 weeks. I've never been a difficult patient for any doctor, so I feel that there was a particular communication issue going on here. If I had it to do all over again, I guess I would have asked more questions, but I didn't realize I wasn't asking the right things. For instance, I picked this treatment route because I wanted something nearly invisible, which we discussed extensively before treatment, so I assumed that when the plan came back with 14 attachments, including my upper front teeth, I'd have been forewarned.