Invisalign Lite for Moderate to Severe Crowding

Went to see the orthodontist for the last check up before refinements and she’s guessing I’ll need 14 refinement trays instead of just 6 like originally thought. You can’t tell with the retainers in but I have a lot of spacing between my front/ side tooth that has been there since tray one. My next appointment I will be getting my attachments taken off and new scans will be taken. I notice that the straighter my teeth get, the more easily they shift back when the retainer is out for a longer period of time. My bottom teeth will be nice and straight and after 45 min of no retainer two of them will be crooked again. I am hoping to get a permanent retainer placed to avoid this in the future. Tray 13 hurt the most out of all the trays. My teeth were sore for the entire week and I could barely chew. I am now on tray 14 and it is a little loose and doesn’t hurt a bit.

I had traditional braces at the age of 12 for two years and, surprise surprise, I didn’t wear my retainer. My teeth shifted back to their original state within two weeks of no retainer wear and my wisdom teeth pushed them into an even more crowded position. I have been embarrassed of my teeth for a while and decided to get the problem fixed. The first orthodontist I went to told me I would need to remove one lower tooth before I could start Invisalign which freaked me out. I decided to get a second opinion and my current orthodontist told me I could use IPR to file between my teeth, no extractions necessary. My teeth were scanned and the pictures were sent to Invisalign where I then waited 12 weeks for the retainers to come in. It typically takes 8 weeks but my orthodontist said she had to put up a fight with the Invisalign provider due to the fact that they wanted me to go with regular Invisalign and have many more trays than the orthodontist wanted. After a month of persuasion though, my orthodontist got what she wanted and I was given 14 regular retainers and 6 refinement retainers with the Invisalign Lite treatment. Invisalign lite is designed for mild to moderate crowding/ spacing. Although i was told on several occasions that I have severe crowding, my orthodontist believes that my teeth will move quickly and easily with this treatment. Once my retainers came in I went in to have attachements put on my teeth to help them shift. Overall I received 23 attachements. To get these on, a part of the tooth is sanded down and the attachements are glued on the tooth. This experience was the worst part of Invisalign so far for me, bc the sand cut up my tongue and went all over my clothes. After the attachments were put on, I had IPR done on 12 teeth, 6 on top and 6 on the bottom. My teeth were very crowded and the pressure hurt from the filing but other than that it wasn’t too bad. After the IPR was finished I was given aligners 1-4 and was instructed to wear each one for two weeks. After the 4th aligner was finished I could go down to wearing them for only one week. The first aligner was the worst one of the entire process so far. It took around 5-10 minutes each time to take out the aligners due to how many attachments I have on my teeth. It was painful and frustrating every time I went to eat or brush my teeth. I ordered a Pul tool online to help take them out and it worked way better than just using my finger nails. The first aligner also gave me a sore on my bottom lip, which I heard you can file the edges of the aligner to prevent sores but never tried it. After the first aligner was finished it was smooth sailing, I am now on aligner 9 and my teeth have been tracking really well, and moving fairly quickly (I’ll post pictures). It has only been 3 months and my bottom teeth are now much straighter. Overall only two people in the 3 months have noticed my retainers, and they only said that my teeth looked a little shinier than usual. Everyone else that I’ve told said they would have never of known if I didn’t say anything. The retainers do stain really easily. If I only drink one beer or a glass of orange juice with them in they turn a slight yellow/ orange color. I’ve gotten pretty lazy with brushing my teeth, I will eat and pop the aligners back in, but it feels gross and I end up brushing my teeth quickly afterwards anyways. It’s nice to be able to eat whatever I want but sometimes the inconvenience of having to take them out and the anxiety of needing to put them back in makes me wish I just went with traditional braces. The one odd thing I noticed so far is that when I take the aligners out my molars don’t touch. My orthodontist said she has had a few people complain about this issue and they should touch again once I am done with treatment. She said she could also shape the back teeth so they fit together as well, which I don’t like the sound of but we will see what needs to happen when my treatment is finished. I am set to finish with my 14th aligner in November and after that I will get my teeth scanned once more to get the 6 refinement trays.