Failed Invisalign, now switching to traditional metal braces

So I was originally skeptical as to if I wanted to document my journey or not but I realized how much it can help others interested in Invisalign AND help keep me optimistic. I was always told "you don't need braces" or "your teeth are straight enough" but bottom line, I've wanted them my entire life. I don't like the gap I have or that two of my top teeth are really crooked. I was originally supposed to start in 2012, but I knew something was not right when my orthodontist at the time magically could not tell me a price, the steps I would need to take, or estimated procedure time until I actually started the process...fast forward three years, I finally started the process on June 16th with a new orthodontist who is a top 1% Invisalign provider. I am now on tray 9 of 24 (unlike most treatments, I change trays every week and not bi-weekly). Was there pain? YES! After the first time I slept in them, when I woke up my mouth was on fire (not literally of course!). I learned to change my trays at night and pop an Ibuprofen and normally when I wake up the next morning, I'm fine. So far the only real complication I had was with gum soreness. I learned the hard way about some trays not fitting properly and having to get them filed down a bit. It seems as if it took forever for my gum to heal. I had to file trays 3-6. Other than that my journey as been fairly smooth and painless thankfully.

I started to notice results at tray 5. My front tooth that is crooked began to be push backed and in line with the rest of my top row. Now I'm just waiting to see when it will straighten out and those spaces I dread soooo much will begin to close. I'm set to complete my treatment on December 1st....but I have a feeling there will be a refinement in my future. I will definitely post more pictures and an update when I'm halfway done (2nd week of September)

So today I went to pick up my remaining 12 trays...YES I'M OFFICIALLY AT MY HALFWAY MARK! I'll be completely honest, my birthday was this past Sunday (Sept 6th) and I've been out of town the last 2 weeks...translation, I maybe wore my trays for 8 hours a day?!? However, my appointment went well. My doctor said I'm making good progress and now only need to wear my elastics at night, yay! I think I am going to wait a week or two before I start doing so since I've slacked off the last 2 weeks. I was beginning to get nervous about my midline not lining up correctly but when I look at tray 24, it looks nice. My next appointment is set for Dec 2nd and unfortunately we were already sort of discussing refinement which I kind of expected. Another thing I've noticed is my new trays say "passive aligner" which my first 12 trays did not. From the little research I've done apparently it is when one side is "done" and the other still needs to move. (makes sense because my right side seems nearly perfect while my left side isn't quite there yet). I also watched my clincheck video again and it looks like the results I'm dying to see won't happen until tray 18 (currently on tray 13). See you all then :)

So I've decided to start doing weekly comparisons since I'm only 10 weeks away from the finish line. When I get a tad more free time I am going to do one big timeline of my progress. Week 14 was the first week in a while that it really hurt when I changed to my new tray. I've still been wearing my elastics 24/7 instead of just at night. Maybe I'm just a wild sleepy but a few mornings I've woke up and my rubber bands were off, lol. Other than that no real complaints. I'm happy to be able to visually see so much progress but I'm still anxious for the end result. 75 more days (Dec 2nd)