Taking the Plunge with Invisible Orthodontia - Tucson, AZ

So...I'm a procrastinator/perfectionist. It's bad. This is why after a couple months of treatment I finally decided to make an account and share my experiences with a bunch of strangers on the internet.
I've wanted for years to have straight teeth, but my parents could not afford braces and I wasn't financially self sufficient to go and get them on my own. However, last summer I got a great job, a drivers license, and a big enough paycheck to start paying for my own things. A family friend/coworker got her daughter's braces at OrthoPros, and when I mentioned how I might finally get braces, she recommended them to me. She thought they were great, and I decided, "Hell, why not?"
Therefore, last November, I went to OrthoPros for my free consultation. Right from the start, I felt welcomed and at ease. The front desk staff was lovely. One of the assistants greeted me warmly, ushered me into a small office off the main room, collected my demographics, and then examined my mouth to see what needed addressing. She then took me back to get x-rays of my mouth (using a super cool machine, unlike the bitewings I had to do when I went to the dentist), and to take pictures from a gazillion different angles. She then sent me back to the little office, and introduced me to one of the orthodontists at the practice. I felt very comfortable with him, and right away, he asked me what kind of braces I wanted. I told him that I really wanted the Invisalign, but figured that my teeth were too messed up to consider the invisible option. After examining me, he told me that I was indeed a candidate; he gave me a ballpark estimate of two years, and said that even with braces it would take approximately that long as well. That had me super excited. I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm vain, I'm a young adult who's already insecure about her smile, I didn't want metal mouth on top of that.
Unfortunately, there were several obstacles. One, I needed my wisdom teeth removed to clear up some space and to keep from later complications (two were impacted), and the other reason was my dad's insurance didn't cover me because I was over 19. Bummer. They gave me the self-pay prices, with a discount, and an affordable monthly payment plan after an initial deposit. The whole atmosphere of the place was friendly, the entire place was very clean, and I knew I was sold; it was just a matter of paying for it.
Here's where some more procrastinating comes in. I got new dental insurance through work, got my wisdom teeth out in January, then waited about six weeks to recover before I called up the clinic to set up my appt to start the process. Turns out my new insurance covered another $1,000...That meant a $2,000 discount, and an affordable deposit/payment plan. After the financial part was taken care of, they put me in the chair, and they scanned my teeth with the iTero Digital Impressions scanner. Pretty awesome. Reading these reviews, I noticed that some people had to do an actual mold with gooey stuff, so I suppose I'm lucky. They sent it off to the Invisalign Company immediately, and six weeks from then, I got my first delivery.
I went to the ortho to get my trays. He showed me my ClinCheck, a tray-by-tray look at how my teeth would move. It was 42 trays for uppers and lowers, which would be 84 weeks, almost 2 years, not including the refinements! I thought it was crazy, but I was ready. I was dedicated. I wanted this more than I had wanted boobs when I was younger. Wait, what? Sorry, moving on.

When I first put the trays in, my teeth felt hard and plastic, and extra shiny. I talked with a lisp, and I drooled. So sexy, right? However, my coworkers didn't know I had them in unless I told them. I did get a [RS bleep] of a headache the first day, as if a super tight rubber band had wrapped itself across my face. The trays had a vice grip on my teeth. I didn't care. My teeth were moving and that's all that mattered. So the first few days were rather brutal, but once my teeth shifted, I could take them on and off in a matter of seconds. The second set of aligners was the same, although it wasn't as tragic because I had gotten used to them by then. My lisp had disappeared, and the small sore on the tip of my tongue from running it along the inside edge had healed.
Last month I got my attachments put on. That was a pain in the butt (mouth). The prepping part wasn't terrible. They cleaned my teeth, put some bonding solution onto my teeth, then put the attachments on and popped the guide tray in, setting the attachments in place with a blue light to harden. Taking the tray off was a whole other matter. Between the assistant, and myself we wrested them from my teeth, but took off a bump in the process, which meant she had to start the process all over for the one bump. They matched my tooth color really well (although they might be clear, not entirely sure) I’m sure you can tell once I put up the pictures. Once again, the first few days sucked. It was hard to eat with all these bumpy things in my mouth, so I ate like a young child with no manners during my meals, but now my mouth is acclimated to them and don't make much of a difference.
So, that's my story so far! I started tray 5 a couple days ago, but I'll save that for another post. And I'll post pics soon.

So I can't access my account (maintenance on the website) to show the official before pictures but I'll show you what my teeth look like now.

Tray 5 during the first couple days was a beyotch. Also, my fangs (as I've so lovingly dubbed them) didn't seem to conform to the tray space? Like they fit around the attachment but there's a very small gap between the top of my tooth and the tray. Luckily it's not as noticeable as it was in the beginning so I know my teeth have shifted but I don't know why this set is like that when all the others have fit exactly. I hope that doesn't mean that they aren't moving the way they're supposed to. A question to ask my ortho at my next appt I guess. My bottom teeth hurt more in this tray, I'm guessing it was concentrating on some of those, seeing as it's easier to floss between some of them. I also got a water flosser, which is great, but I'm still getting the hang of it, I'm still kind of messy.

As for progress, it's hard to see any. I can feel the difference when I floss, but being on only tray 5 out of 42 isn't going to yield very visible results. My family claims to see a difference, however.

Sorry about the pictures, they suck. As you can see, I have major crowding issues, teeth overlapping. My fangs grew in over my baby teeth, so I have gaps back there where my adult teeth will hopefully slide into place. Multiple attachments on a bottom tooth and two top premolars (I should probably learn the names of these teeth) and then a bunch more have just one.

I have my next appt June 30th, I'll get 6,7, and hopefully 8. They'll also do some more IPR.

Saw my orthodontist on Monday. He said everything is still moving and looking good! They did a little more IPR between a couple teeth that were especially tight (my front two, yikes!)

I also got another look at my Clincheck. It kind of sucks, I mean I am going to have flared out teeth up until tray 30. This is because in order to pull my fangs in we have to push everything forward and you can only go forward so much until you have to go out. Then once there's enough space they can start pushing everything back in. It's a tad distressing but they said to hang in there, my case is one where my teeth will look worse before they get better. Fabulous, right?

I can already tell that that's what this tray is starting to do. It's also moving a couple of bottom teeth around, which I'm thankful for because I hasn't really been feeling too much down there even though I can tell they've shifted.

Here are some more pics. I added in some of me Pre Invisalign but they were hard to find because I tend to delete any pictures of me looking like my teeth are extra crooked or if I'm just plain ugly.