Crowding with Extractions - Indiana, IN

I've had crooked teeth since I can remember. My parents couldn't afford braces when I was young. Several of my baby teeth never came out, and I am missing my top lateral incisors. I wore a retainer when I was 12 after they pulled most of my retained baby teeth, but they kept my top baby canines to fill in the space by my missing lateral incisors. I always hated my teeth, but eventually started to care less about it, though I remained self-conscious when I smiled.

Fast forward, I'm 32 and can afford braces. My baby teeth were still in place, but I (and my dentist) was concerned they'd eventually come out b/c they no longer had roots holding them in place. So I decided it was time to finally get my teeth straightened.

I knew I didn't want traditional braces, but as my teeth are really crowded, wasn't sure if I was a candidate for invisalign. I went to an elite preferred orthodontist, and he surprised me by saying I was a candidate! Hooray! But... I would need extractions. :/

I knew the baby teeth would have to go, otherwise whats the point... but in order to get my bottom teeth to line up with my top bite, two on the bottom would have to go. (Begrudgingly) I went to an oral surgeon and had my top baby canines and my bottom lateral incisors removed. Needless to say, I look very gappy and awful.

Fortunately the invisalign trays had pontics built in, but the missing teeth make me very apprehensive to remove my trays in front of others. One of the assistants in the office actually gave me the okay to eat with them in if needed, but I have to brush my teeth and the trays right afterwards very thoroughly. When I'm at home I take them out to eat, but if I'm at a work function or out with friends, I leave them in and just eat very soft room temperature foods. Its worked fine so far.

I'm on my first tray, 12 days in. I have 14 attachments, which made getting the trays out the first day extremely difficult. I also went in for the trays and attachments the morning after I had the four teeth extracted. What can I say, I'm a glutton for punishment. So not only was I in pain from the extractions, I was in pain from the attachments and the new trays. The first four days were pretty rough. On the second day the attachments on my front bottom teeth came off. D'oh. It made it a lot easier to get the trays off, but the attachments had to be reattached.

I still have a lisp. I think my coworkers have noticed that I'm talking differently, and the pontics look a little different from my original teeth. I'm really hoping as my teeth become more aligned that the lisp goes away.

I have 40 trays on top and bottom, yikes! My orthodontist has been trying to talk me into the acceledent, but I've already spent so much money as it is, I can't afford another grand. It'd be great to get it done in half the time, but I just can't justify the cost.

I use a timesheet app on my phone to track the time I'm wearing the aligners so I know when I hit 300 hours. I'm very eager to see some results. I have my next two sets of aligners, and those already look a little different. According to my clincheck I should see a noticeable difference around the 7th set, which is really exciting.

My ortho already warned me that I'd probably need further refining after the first 40 trays. He's been very good about giving me the facts and not sugar coating how this process will go, for which I'm very grateful.