College Student, Front Gap & Invisalign-Finally, my Road to a Perfect Smile :) - Dallas, TX

Hey, welcome to RealSelf! I also have a gappy smile and just started tray 4 of Invisalign! Even with my gap, my trays are pretty much invisible. Not one person has noticed them on me until I myself have pointed them out. And even if someone DOES see them - who cares? You're doing something good for yourself! I can't speak for everyone on here, but I felt quite a bit of pain with my first tray for the first couple of days. Another Invisaligner on here said it perfectly: your teeth have been sitting there are comfy and happy for your whole life, and now these things are invading your mouth and moving your teeth out of place! So yes, it did hurt, especially when I removed the aligners. Nothing that Advil couldn't fix! And my next three aligners did not hurt at all, just felt quite a bit of pressure, but that would subside within minutes of putting the trays in. Nothing to worry about! You will salivate a lot when you first put in the aligners, because your body thinks that they are food. This goes away very quickly (within 30 minutes for me). After that, most Invisaign users get dry mouth and chapped lips - but you will very quickly get into the habit of always having water and chapstick with you. Vaseline is amazing if it gets really bad; I know my lips were horrible when the temperatures up here reached -30 (yay canada!) Your pronunciation will be a bit affected for a couple of days while you settle in - I struggled with "s", "f", "v" and "th". This only lasted about a week with me, but others have said that it has lasted a bit longer. It really depends on the person! How soon you will see results depends on the action plan that your orthodontist/dentist comes up with along with Invisalign. I can definitely see my gap getting smaller and I'm only on tray 4 out of 20. It's slow, but it's still progress! Has your orthodontist mentioned anything about you being able to see a ClinCheck video? It's a virtual simulation that Invisalign creates using the moulds that were taken of your teeth. You can actually see how your teeth will be moving with each tray, it's actually really cool (I've posted a couple of these on my review, you can check them out!) Eating will hurt at first. Because we are both closing these front gaps, you will notice that biting into anything will hurt - so forget pizza/egg rolls/corn on the cob/etc is painful. I got into the habit of moving every bite towards the back of my mouth to my molars, and would try to make sure that my front teeth don't do any of the chewing/biting work. This really only happened on the first tray with me. Sorry for the novel-sized response! I always get excited when I see new Invisaligners with gappy teeth just like me. :) I'm really looking forward to following your progress! It's a bit of a lifestyle change but it's so so so worth it in the end!

Chompy said it very, very well.  I only have a couple of things to add :).  You may be able to see bubbles in your trays--some people experience that, and it can be easier to see if there is a gap where the tray is visible without teeth in it.  Some people don't have issues with this, but it's likely.  Others are unlikely to notice at all, or only when they're very close and specifically looking at your teeth.  

As for how soon you'll start seeing results, that varies tremendously, but, from looking at a lot of cases here on RealSelf, it seems like diastemas show results more quickly than crowding.  But it also seems like more gaps show results faster than just one gap.  It still varies tremendously from person to person.  You may also want to check out PreOrtho's review, since she's nearly done.  You can see how quickly her gap closed.

I also look forward to following your progress, and if you ever have any technical questions here on RealSelf, just let me know.  I'm here to help!

Hi and welcome! I too have a front gap (well gaps - as they are all gappy). We are lucky in some ways as we start to see results much quicker than others! Look forward to following your journey.

People don't notice them as much as you do. Now not only do you have a gap but you have plastic in between it. You will get used to it quickly because you see results fast! The only issue I had for the first few trays was moisture appearing in between the trays and my teeth annoying but much better than the dry mouth experience that comes later :)

I started my treatment in February. I'm also on a 18 month plan. I spoke with a lisp for the entire set of tray one but it is now gone. People did not know I was wearing them unless I told them. I also have a gap too. Good luck

I had some discomfort with tray 2 but not as intense as the first tray. I have crowded teeth and I'm on tray 4 and haven't noticed a difference yet so I can not attest to whether you will see a change. I think it's rare to see a difference in the first few trays but it's also on a case by case circumstance. I did have a lisp the first 10 days or so that I started treatment. It was gone by the second tray. I find that for me the speech impediment was mostly caused by the fact that you have these big foreign plastic objects in your mouth and you're not quite sure how to go about your regular was of speaking. After the "full" feeling in your mouth subsides so does the speech difficulty. Although, if I am speaking a lot I do find that my mouth gets rather dry and my lisp does slightly return but not with the same intensity as the first few days of treatment.