Queen of the Closed-mouth Smile - Dollard-des-ormeaux, QC

So, after 2 and then some years of endless trays, brushing & flossing ad nauseum, hours on end spent checking my teeth's progress in the mirror, ups and downs and all a-rounds, I've reached the end.

At my last visit, the aliens were finally ousted from my mouth, my teeth were polished, molds were made for my provider's files, "after" pictures taken, and I was given four sets of my new Vivera retainers to wear daily for three months, followed by nighttime only for life.
The viveras are of a harder plastic, much easier to keep clean as they don't have that tendency of yellowing after a while. I've been using them to whiten my teeth without the residue causing any stains or harm. You get 4 pairs, and a new white case. I've been told that its a good idea to wear each tray for 3-4 months to keep them nice and tight. Sounds like a plan.
Woohoo! My next trip overseas is planned for late August, I will no longer be travelling with Invisalign worries of where and when and how to brush and floss!

So my teeth are still not magazine-perfect; but they were never going to be. I've come a long way though, and I just wasn't interested in any more pesky trays. At my age, this is good enough for me. I probably should have stopped at tray 12 of my refinements, before the over-correction trays started creating triangles here and there, but .....shoulda-woulda-coulda. My bite is also a bit off as I have a bit of a posterior open bite I believe, and I've bitten the inside of my front lip a couple of times, but I have an appointment with my provider in a couple of weeks and he said it might just need a bit of tweaking. Since I spoke to him, the bite is actually better, so it might just resolve itself with time.
I have not been keeping the trays in for 22 hours. I let myself enjoy my morning coffee (ahhhhhh), leisurely and happily sipping as I read the paper( my deepest apologies to those coffee lovers just starting Invisalign-I feel your pain). I take them out in the car before going out for supper and brush and replace when I get home. Yes, they are sometimes tight going in if I've had them out for longer than 3-4 hours, but there's no pain, and they settle in very nicely within a few minutes, feeling strangely comforting. Can't believe I wrote that.
I must say that this woman's close-mouthed smile has almost become a thing of the past; sometimes I still do it intuitively. And I find I smile with my mouth open more readily when I'm not wearing my retainers. I think it's because they are thick, so they are a little bulkier against my lips, feeling a little unnatural.
Speaking of which, have people noticed how their face looks when wearing Invisalign while exercising? Maybe it just happens to me or to older invisaligners, but I practice yoga, and there happens to be a mirror in the studio. In some inverted poses, it looks like I've had a bad facelift. Everything sags naturally except my mouth. Bizarre. But I digress...
I hope everyone's having an exceptional summer, Invisalign trays and all. I will post my final pictures and will be back after I've seen my provider for a final update, as well as adding a post on travelling with Invisalign shortly. Hope you've enjoyed my posts and that they've been somewhat helpful. Happy brushing and flossing. Keep smiling!

So here I am again. So soon, you ask? I put on over-correction tray 1 (tray number 13 in my refinement stage -should have seen this coming, considering the tray number) on Tuesday night. As were the over-correction trays in my initial set, they were quite tight going in, and my teeth have been pretty tender, especially in the problem areas. By Thursday, I was liking what I saw, and a slight problem I had in my bite during the previous tray was gone. Fabulous, right? Stop right here, we've arrived! I had an appointment with my provider set for yesterday afternoon as I had had to cancel my initial appt, which was to have been on Tuesday, before putting in tray #13. I hadn't seen him since tray 9 though, so I kept my appointment.

Well, I was sooo excited about where my teeth were at that, after asking to see if there was much more to be gained in my problem areas with the last 2 trays as I had planned to do ( good thinking, right?) and seeing fir myself that there didn't seem much, we made the decision that I would stop right here and go ahead with ordering the vivera retainers. Woohooo! Hooray! An appointment was made for less than 2 weeks when this tray would be done and my retainers would be in, aliens off to never-again land, teeth polished, the end of an era and beginning of my open-mouthed smiling days! Hazzah! Yesssssss!

April fools. Yes, it's today. And boy did I get it good. Remember when I said his tray was painful and seemed to be targeting this problem areas. Well, it certainly is. So much so, that I have two rather large triangles which have formed literally overnight. One of them right smack in the middle of my two front teeth. Yes. No joke. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to see that more mvement is possible, but did it have to come so late in the day? Just when I was getting ready to party? Well, needless to say, I was thrown into a panic and called the office right away, hoping it wasn't too late to halt production on those retainer babies until I at least see where my teeth will settle by the end of this tray! Yeah, I know I should have thought about putting it off until the end of the tray before making a decision yesterday, but my teeth haven't shifted soooo much in one tray for a looooong time. The refinement trays were so subtle and calm.....

To make a long story short, after a fair bit of apprehension (if my nails weren't gel I wouldn't have any now) my hero of a provider was able to call them, they had not started production, (phew!), he cancelled my appointment where I was to get my buttons off and receive my retainers (sob!), and I am to wait this tray through, swinging by his office next week to pick up 14 and 15 just in case I am not entirely happy with he end result after 13. We will make a new appointment once I feel confident that I've reached the end, but only after wearing a whole tray through!!! ( learned my lesson here, it's not over until the plastic tray hits the rest in the growing pile of plastic in my closet.)
This means I may have to wear my bubbly tray as a retainer for a few weeks until I get my permanent ones, but hey, I almost had to settle for spaces between my teeth......no complaints from me on this one.

Can you imagine going through two years of this, opting for refinements after going through 38 trays, and ending up with spaces due to an over-enthusiastic oversight?

I shudder at the thought and I adore my provider. I'm posting a pic that I took thus morning. Hope you survived your April fool's day!

Could it be that I'm done? Hard to believe, but tonight I finish tray 12 in my refinements.... The last one before those 3 over-corrections that I don't know if I want.... I will be changing into the first one, 13, and then I have an appointment with my provider on Thursday. At this appointment we will be looking closely at the clincheck, and if there is not much more to be gained from those last 3, then that's it! I imagine he will be making an appointment to help me evict those aliens living on my teeth, and to make molds and stuff so he can order my retainers, which I think he had said will be Vivera. I will tell you more about the retainer stage as I get the info myself, although I remember him saying I will need to wear them for 3 months full time before. Will be able to progress to nighttime only. By June then, my teeth should be finally free! Ah, the freedom to taste stuff at Costco, not need to take a purse filled with teeth paraphernalia everywhere I go, drink coffee any time of the day, at leasure!!!! Need I go on?

The refinement stage went quite quickly, with most trays causing little to no discomfort. Will I actually miss the feeling of teeth being moved, of changing to new trays every 2 weeks? Ummm, let me think......Not!

So I'll post the newest pics, and will let you know shortly about where m teeth and I will be going from here....happy invisaligning everyone!