Invisalign - Crowded Teeth - Sydney, AU

Here are photos of my finished teeth, I have included some images of the bonded metal retainers as well (bit difficult to take a photo of these). Thanks everyone for following my journey and best of luck to all those starting their invisalign adventure!

Sorry for the long delay between updates but everything just wrapped up so nicely I forgot to update my blog.

So the Ortho ordered another 7 aligners for the "refinement" stage and those went hassle free. After this I was called in for an appointment to get all the attachments removed and get my teeth molded for the metal bonded retainers. It was sweet freedom being attachment free!

Two weeks after that I had the metal retainers bonded to the inside of my top and bottom front teeth. These felt very odd at first - took a lot of getting used to! Now I hardly think about them but the top ones I can pretty much feel all the time as my tongue sits against it (but it is no major problem).

Also I sold my used Acceledent on ebay for almost $700 (reckon I could have got more if I wanted to), so it is good to recoup some of that cost.

I have a plastic retainer that looks like an aligner tray which I use at night time approx every second night. It is okay to wear, not too uncomfortable. Ortho indicated that it can take years before the teeth will settle so it is important to be dedicated to using the night retainer. It seems the metal bonded retainers may just stay on for life which is a bit crazy but oh well, after spending so much money on straight teeth - I'd like to keep them that way!

Three month post invisalign check up was today and went smoothly, the metal bonded retainers remain all good and the Ortho is really pleased with my result - as am I. The invisalign tested my patience at times and was quite tough for the first month but the truth is, the rest of the time flew by with no dramas and it was the best decision I ever made to get them. Really happy with how it worked out and highly recommend getting them.

So bit of a delay since my last update, it has been a busy time and before I knew it, I was at aligner 23!

At Aligner 19, I had a 45min teeth filing session which was pure torture. Not exactly painful (although I was wise to coat my teeth in sensadyne toothpaste for 2 days before), but you could feel the vibration through your whole face as the orthodontist threaded thin pieces of metal between all my front teeth, back and forth!
But oh we'll it is done now. Afterwards there was no marked gaps but you could feel it when eating etc. My gums bled a bit the day after but otherwise I had no other issues related to the IPR.

Since that I have finished up the rest of my aligners and attended an ortho review this week to discuss refinements. I got my teeth re- scanned as well as a teeth mould done for bonded retainers top and bottom.

The orthodontist was very happy with my teeth and said he wants to discuss with the other orthodontist whether we should do refinements or not. They will be calling me next week with the news!

If they decide no need for refinements then I will get my attachments removed and bonded metal retainers (metal wire bits) placed behind my front teeth. Which means, I should be finished this whole process very soon! Madness. It has gone so quickly!