First Day...Danville, VA

Tonight I've decided to put my second tray in and deal with the tightness and soreness while I sleep for a few hours. I'm really excited!! Learning from my first tray, I filed down any sharp edges so that they could fit in my mouth slightly comfortable because I do expect I'll need to file them again once they loosen up a little. I took some pictures of what my teeth looked like prior to put the trays in and I'm really excited. Just by looking at the second liner, I noticed that my bottom with "should" move the spacing in dramatically with very minimum spacing. I expect my bottom teeth to correct prior to my biggest opportunity, my front four teeth :( It doesn't matter because I'm excited with the results in the first tray. I know the shifting will hurt but I'm hoping I'll be more tolerant to the pain since I'm on my second tray. Thus far I haven't died from the pain because I've been popping liquid gel pain killers to act quickly. It works!

I have my next appointment after tray two and I do have some concerns and questions... I read that some people develop more spacing in their teeth during treatment than when they first began treatment. I hope that this isn't too noticeable for me because I want to correct the horrible spacing I have and not have more spacing than I began with. Also, I noticed that some people were prescribed to change their trays after five days? Why is that? If the teeth does the shifting in the first five days, why do I need to wear my liners for 2-3 weeks? After my first week, I noticed that my liners were becoming more loose and they were nothing to pop them in and out. I didn't feel that they were really doing anything for me beyond that. I'm just going to do as I'm told until I get direction that I can change them sooner.

Another thing I noticed was that my four front teeth haven't had any change in the spacing. I definitely feel my overbite coming in just as much as my underbite. The worst feeling is that my two right front teeth hurt the most when I put my liner in. I don't have any crowding but I can tell that it's difficult to put the liner on that side because it' may be slightly crooked. It makes me feel like my teeth are going to break out of the roots! It's so painful.

Overall, I'm very satisfied with the treatment progress. In two weeks I'll be getting my attachments so I'll get the full experience! I'll keep you posted and will post pictures soon!

So I'm nearly a week into my third tray and I'm really excited. I didn't expect many changes in my first two trays but the results have been unreal! With this tray, I was able to get my attachments/bumpers put on. My orthodontist team is so amazing because I couldn't even see them when they were first applied. The neat thing is that the attachments for my four front teeth are on the inside of my mouth so they aren't seen when I smile. The other attachments are barely visible. I don't feel so odd with the attachments as I thought I did.

Barely being a week into this third tray, today I've felt a slight pain coming from the inside of my gum line near one of my front attachments. Does the liner cause the attachments to shift with my teeth? I don't think that's possible but something has definitely shifted. I feel my attachment pushed up towards my gum line and it hurts so bad. I had to take my liner out just to not have my gums bleed. I feel that I might have done something when I was flossing. Although this is a minor setback, I was able to text Dr. Jones at 9pm and let him know what was going on. He's super awesome and will allow me to come to the office tomorrow morning for correction. Thank God I don't have to be in pain too long :)

So overall I'm loving my treatment and this awesome team. My journey has been awesome and I'm so happy that I get to document my progress here. I've gotten tons of compliments on the progress this far. I'm even more excited about how my spacing is closing so quickly. Additionally, both my overbite and underbite have been brought in tremendously. My bite has definitely changed. My snoring is even more minimum which allows me to sleep better. Before my teeth would cause me to sleep with an open mouth and now I notice it.