29 Year Old Professional Flute Player Treated in Brazil

Ok, it's been a while since I updated this. Very bad of me. I'm almost at the "end" of the journey...tray 38 out of 41. I'm now changing trays every 10 days, which is awesome. My teeth and accompanying the movements very well...I'm not suffering any significant discomfort at all when changing trays...

Going back a few months though (around Christmas), I had a particular movement that was causing extreme pain in one of my front teeth. It was so sensitive that I couldn't even drink any liquid that wasn't luke warm without almost squealing in pain. Extremely sensitive!! I was using Sensodyne to help it, but it was still pretty unbearable for a few weeks. The movement itself wasn't so bad, but it was the sensitivity of the tooth. Anyway, I'm past that now and it's all smiles!

I'm absolutely thrilled when I see how much progress I've made. I never really expected my teeth to be pristine (which they aren't), but they aren't distracting at least. I am so confident to smile and laugh...it's quite upsetting to think that for the most part of my life I tried to avoid smiling at all costs.

Things that I wish were improved (still have to see what the next few trays do for me)...alignment of top front teeth isn't lining up with the middle of my nose. Maybe that's because my nose is on an angle? No idea! Anyway, it's fine for photos, but a little odd upon careful observation (and clear to see in these highly exposed photos that I've posted). Also, when my trays are out, there are some small gaps at the top of my teeth (near the gums). The bottom of the teeth line up great, but the tops don't because they are thinner I guess. My orthodontist has told me that the refinement stage will deal with this...I'm really considering doing it. I've gotten so used to have invisalign that I could easily handle another phase of liners. After my last tray (in 40 days time), when the attachments are removed, I'm going to get my teeth whitened. I'll then travel for a couple of months with my new awesome teeth, and then come back to Brazil for refinements.

My orthodontist (Dr. Ana Karina) is a wonderful professional. Very encouraging and attentive to details. I'd recommend her to anyone!! She's also been fantastic about helping me with my extensive travel periods.

I'm so pleased with Invisalign, and so happy that I made the decision to take this path. It's all just so much easier than I ever expected (especially thinking back to those first few days with the trays in, and how UNBEARABLE the discomfort was). I can honestly say that within the whole process, I've only had a handful of trays that have caused significant discomfort during the initial 3-4 days. The rest of the ride has been sooooo breezy. I never need to file my trays anymore too...my gums and tongue are so used to it.

It's all been so worth it.

I've been rubbish at updating this! I'm now onto tray 27 and my ugly top teeth are starting to look almost normal now!! People are shocked at the difference... Just yesterday I had a friend ask me where my vampire tooth had gone to, and when I pointed to it he was absolutely speechless. The bottom teeth have a fair way to go (funny because I always thought that they were less crooked than the top teeth).

I suppose I need to go WAY back to December where I had to start using elastics. I was overseas on the date that I needed to start using them and I had a hell of a lot of trouble get the damn things on! Took me a good hour and I was almost ready to punch the bathroom mirror in by that point. I wasn't a big fan of the elastics but luckily I didn't have to use them for too long. Several months after using them, my orthodontist requested that I only use them at night, then every second night, and now barely ever. It seems that my teeth were TOO responsive to the elastics and she needed the movements to be a little less dramatic. I'm happy about that...the elastics are not very invisible (although some are more-so than others).

As for pain, it's all quite manageable. Some of the movements are really unpleasant, and I was shouting in discomfort when putting them in after a meal or something, but it always gets better after a few days. I've also learnt that I can personally get away with having them out for longer than 3 hours a day IF I constantly put them back in again. For example, if I have a day where I'm performing a LOT and need to have by trays out for 4-5 hours, it's ok as long as I never have them out for longer than about 1.5 hours at a time. I then must reinsert them for about 20 mins at least so my teeth don't move back into position too much.

I've become a lot more relaxed too about what I drink with the trays in. I'll have the occasional bottle of red wine, but only in the last days of the tray because they do stain a bit.

From a flute player's perspective, I really can only say good things about Invisalign. It's definitely the best option...I can play at about 85-90% of my usual capacity with them in, and am totally unaffected with I remove them.

I'm so pleased with my orthodontist too. She's the best. The only thing I can't stand is having my teeth filed every couple of months. I've learnt to bring headphones in that case and play Foo Fighters really loudly to distract myself!

This is a bit strange, but I've recently discovered something interesting. Basically, I have two 'false teeth' due to extractions, and my orthodontist has kindly been filling these empty spaces with tooth coloured resin to make it appear like there are in fact teeth there. Problem is, the resin easily falls out. I was quite self conscious about people noticing my big dark extraction site, but now I've learnt that I can use light coloured nail polish to fill the false teeth and it looks just as good (and STAYS!!). I use a creamy transparent colour and while it's not exactly the same colour as my other teeth, it does the job. And it stays, even when I brush the trays hard with toothpaste.