Smile Direct Club Journey for spacing/gaps.

So here are some things I’ve learned over the past few days.

I don’t need Tylenol. The trays only hurt when I first put them in. The pain last for about 3 minutes the goes away on its own. It’s gotten progressively better as the days go by.

The lisp. I’m so self conscious. Two separate people have told me I sound like I have a bunch of spit in my mouth. Not cute. I’m working on it.

The bottom of my tongue got irritated the first couple of days. I planned to buy wax, but procrastinated to the point where it’s no longer necessary. I’ve gotten used to it, and I haven’t developed any ulcer or anything like that. I’ll see if the next tray is any different.

Because I have to brush my teeth so much more often, I’ve switched to a soft, non-electronic toothbrush and a non-whitening toothpaste. My teeth are a little sore, especially in the front, and I don’t want to develop and sensitivity by overusing aggressive products.

It still feels weird to have something constantly in my mouth, hopefully I’ll adjust soon. I’ll share update and pics when I start week 2.

I got my trays months ago, but due to illness I didn’t start treatment right away. So I popped my first aligners tray in early this morning. The pain wasn’t that bad. But I got very hungry about an hour after popping them in, took them out to eat, and when I put them back it hurt much worse. I slept it off, by the time I woke up it didn’t hurt at all. Then I took them out for brunch (yes, I had breakfast and brunch). My two front teeth hurt after I took the trays out, which I didn’t expect because it wasn’t hurting while I was wearing them. When I put them back in, it hurt like hell. Popped some Tylenol and in a few minutes I was fine.

I will say, if you have large spaces your trays will be visible. My upper teeth show the the plastic between my spaces, my lower trays are more incognito.

So I decided to get SD and address the spacing issues later. I saw a cosmetic dentist that addressed spacing on a person who had larger teeth with bonding. He actually bonded her lateral incisors which were small in comparison to her front teeth. The result was a more balanced look because the size of her front teeth looked smaller in comparison. I had to go back to the Smile Shop because scans expire after 3 months, I believe. Same treatment plan, as far as I can tell. Waiting for aligners to ship.