My Invisalign Blog» Invisalign blogs

Invisalign Braces Set 23 – Update With Pictures

admin — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:06:23 +0000

I know, I know, I’ve been a bit slow with the updates lately. I have no real excuse other than a serious bout of the flu. I’m in the southern hemisphere (i.e it’s summer here) and I have had both the swine flu and seasonal flu vaccinations (fortunately we have a large stockpile of swine flu vaccination here, it’s available free and on demand) but somehow I still managed to succumb to a 2 week bout of illness. Yuck. I managed to keep my aligners in for most of it, although there were a couple of days where I simply couldn’t function without a lozenge in my mouth as my throat was so raw and painful to swallow; so on those days I’m afraid I was a little remiss.
Fortunately I’m now back on form and back on track with my invisalign, so I promise I’ll try and update more regularly.

As you can see from the pictures there are no massive revelations at this point in my treatment, but things are slowly moving into place. I am now on 3/9 of my upper refinements and on 23/34 of my lower aligners.

As you can see from the first picture the movement of my crown has now caused a very ugly black line along my gumline next to the crown. Fortunately my aligners actually mask this to a great extent so it isn’t nearly so noticeable when they are in, but it is, nonetheless, a bit ugly. The profile view of that crown is improving (see third picture) but still isn’t nearly perfect as the front tooth still needs to move back into place a little more. I have six aligners to go, so we’ll see what happens. I’m still really looking forward to getting the crown replaced (although already having nightmares about the actual procedure!) I know that the cosmetic dentist also said that he needs to raise my gumline above that tooth, which I’m trying not to even think about at this point for fear of never going back to another dental appointment again. If you have had a gum raising procedure and can offer any kind words of encouragement, please, please do. Frankly, I’m terrified!

My upper refinements as mentioned in a previous post are focusing on two areas, my front right tooth that needs rotating and the molar that is too long and not in position on the left side (right side in these pictures). I was told that my nine refinements are really six aligners and three over-corrections; if my teeth look done after the first six trays we can stop. Something I have been wondering about is, what happens if one area looks perfect after six aligners and the other doesn’t? Do I have to over-correct one area to get a finished result on the other? I’ll ask my orthodontist at the next appointment and let you know.

My bottom arch isn’t looking too different from straight on but I am happy to report that a real gap is opening up inside my mouth for my stray tooth to move into (see my clincheck). I can also see that the bottom arch looks less “witchy” when viewed from the front. One of the things that I disliked so much about my teeth pre treatment is that the the bottom row were both very visible when I talked and also very pointed and crooked, giving me a look that could easily scare small children! (see my sidebar for the before pictures) This far into the treatment I am happy to report that they are becoming much more uniform and whilst not straight, will no longer qualify me for a walk on part in The Wizard of Oz.

As ever I would love to hear your comments on my treatment. Feel free to click on the “comments” link below and let me know your thoughts on how things are going.

Invisalign Refinements Are In!

admin — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 01:59:00 +0000

The good news is that my Invisalign refinements have arrived for my upper teeth; the bad news is that I have 9 new sets. My orthodontist has placated me somewhat by assuring me that 3 are over-corrections and that we probably won’t need them.

Apparently, in refinement they usually give over-corrections. They appear to have concluded that if something didn’t work the first time it may need a little something extra in the refinement phase. I’m hoping if I am superlatively compliant that little extra will be unnecessary and I’ll be able to finish after 6 aligners. We’ll see.
I’m a little disappointed that there are nine, but frankly, at this point I would rather get it done right, than done quickly. I still have to wear my bottom aligners anyway as I am still in the middle of the first run of those so it really doesn’t make a huge amount of difference. The only real problem is that the upper aligners are so much more visible, and that you can feel them in your mouth more too.

One thing that bothers me is that I still have my original attachments on my upper teeth. I am sure my orthodontist has kept them for a reason but I know that other people have had theirs removed before refinement impressions were taken. This sometimes means that if there are no attachments needed during refinement they don’t have any. I only wish I had remembered to query it before my impressions were taken. Anyway, it’s too late now! When I see my orthodontist in a few weeks time I will ask him why we kept them and let you know. I suppose one consolation is that the attachments do keep the aligners much more stable on my teeth, they feel much tighter than they did before I had them. Perhaps that will help them to move more quickly. I live in hope.

One good thing is that my aligner numbers have synchronised. I will wear 21 lower whilst I wear #1 upper. This should help me to remember where I am up to. Of course, my orthodontist claims to have designed it that way. And I believe him. Really!

My clinchecks can be seen here. As ever they are very quick but you can see the area on my molar that is over extruded (is too long!) and that my front right tooth needed to rotate a little more.

Apologies for the funny green logo on there. I needed to crop my name and address off the clincheck and this was the only way I could work out to do it! Must be my age…

Set 5 of my Invisalign braces and a sore throat

admin — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 23:42:00 +0000

I almost decided not to switch to these Invisalign trays on the basis that I have a seriously sore throat. But. But. But. The ever nagging little voice in my head that thinks that my teeth will end up going back 5 stages if I don’t complete this thing properly keeps telling me that I need to follow all the instructions exactly to the letter, so switch I did. I figured that the panadol would probably help my throat too, right?

I have read all over the invisalign braces forums that you should switch your aligners at night. The reasoning behind this is that by morning the pressure on your teeth will be reduced, and that they will be easier to remove.

For me, though, there are two reasons why this doesn’t work. Firstly, I actually like the pressure- somehow it makes it real that my teeth are moving and that this isn’t just some crazy torture device that I am inflicting on myself. Secondly, and yes, I know this is sad, I like having 2 days a fortnight where I can’t snack! As a confirmed snack addict Lord knows my body needs this regular reduction in calories, so I see it as a positive that getting my trays out is something of an ordeal for the first couple of days.

I had the usual excitement taking these aligners out of the packet. I’m not sure what it is that I am expecting when I unwrap them- that these will be the ones that will suddenly transform my teeth?- but I always get that tragic little flutter. I also got my set #1 braces out, and have taken some pictures to compare. Personally I’m not sure that there is any visible difference, maybe it is too soon, but if you can see any please let me know. I feel that there should be some simply because on 5/17 my top arch is almost a third of the way through treatment.

I have looked at my clincheck videos which definitely show some movement by this point, but on the aligners and on my teeth I just can’t spot it. Perhaps it is like watching your children grow. You don’t see it happening at the time, it is only later looking back at old pictures that you can see the difference.

Even if there is nothing to actually see I can definitely feel the movement happening. The majority of it is in my two front teeth and in the area where the stray tooth is growing over the bottom of my mouth. It is certainly pressure as opposed to pain though.

These are my comparison pictures. I have noticed that set #1 have started to discolour (and whiff!) in storage so from now on I am sterilising all my old aligners before putting them away.

The left aligner is number one, the right is number 5. Please let me know if you can see anything different about them!

Also, if you get the chance would you mind voting in my poll about my blog colour. It’s in the left hand sidebar. Thanks

4th Set Of Invisalign Braces

admin — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 10:14:00 +0000

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change. ” Charles Darwin

Well, Darwin would be proud of me this week. Not only have I managed to get used to my new Invisalign attachments, I have almost forgotten they are there. Which isn’t to say that I like them, of course, rather that I am learning to live with them in all their visible glory.

Set 3 were diabolical to remove, but now, three weeks into my life with attachments my Invisalign aligners are almost as easy to remove as they were before the dreaded buttons were put on. I can whip them out fairly quickly, and regularly do it surreptitiously in public eating places all over Brisbane. Nobody seems to notice, or perhaps they are just too polite to stare, in which case I am eternally grateful to them. I have still have the problem of my attachments catching occasionally on the side of my cheeks when the aligners are out of my mouth, but even that problem is diminishing as my cheeks toughen up.

Set 4 were tight at first, particularly on my front teeth which were tender for the first 24-36 hours, but not so tender that I couldn’t eat. It was the kind of tender that I have actually come to almost enjoy as I know that it means that my teeth are moving towards their new improved positions! I had some trouble with a sharp edge in place that had never rubbed before, but 24 hours and some sly manoeuvres with a nail file sorted out that problem.

I find now, and yes, it is somewhat pathetic, that I get a little bit excited as changeover day approaches. In the second week of wearing an aligner I get that feeling you have in a job when you have already given your notice. You are just marking time and going through the motions, mentally you have already moved on. I can now understand why people try to speed up their Invisalign treatment time by cutting the time of wearing each aligner to 10 days. It is tempting. You know what though? After $6300 dollars, and all that it has taken to get here, it is not that tempting.

Bring on aligner no. 5….

Diet coke, flouride and Invisalign braces…

admin — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 22:06:00 +0000

I’m not sure whether I have been living under a rock all my life, or whether I just don’t watch enough TV but it seems that I have missed out on something fairly important when it comes to this braces thing.

Since I had children I have got rid of almost all the vices in my life- smoking, staying out all night partying, you know the kind of stuff. So much so, that lately I have been considering the possibility of cultivating some new ones… One habit that I haven’t managed to kick though, is a serious diet coke habit. Before you say it, yes I know it is the devil’s drink and probably carcinogenic and all that stuff, I understand and appreciate all of it, but the problem is…it tastes gooooood. So, Invisalign braces or not, I have kept to my several glasses a day routine, taking my aligners out, glugging down a quick hit, brushing (not always flossing because it is only a drink, right?) and then putting my aligners straight back in. Bad. Bad. Bad.

However, yesterday, thanks to the good people at the braces review forum, it has come to my attention that I am probably seriously damaging my teeth. ( I mean more than I thought I was by drinking the brown stuff) Apparently there is a Tv advert at the moment that tells you that after fizzy drinks you shouldn’t brush for 30 minutes as you may actually remove enamel from your teeth. Instead it is far better to swish with water, wait 30 minutes and then brush.

How did I miss this? I’m a busy mother with a pretty hectic life, and I’ve never been a daytime tv kind of gal, but I can’t believe that I have missed it completely. Apparently, asking around, it seems that it is common knowledge though, so maybe I’m just not as well informed as I thought about all matters dental.

Every child is proffered dire warnings by their parents and holds forever in their mind the urban myth of a tooth dissolving in a glass of coke overnight, so I can believe that drinking it could soften the enamel- it sounds plausible. So what happens if I don’t brush for half an hour? Should I put my aligners back in and effectively create the glass/tooth circumstances within my aligners? Should I keep the aligners out for half an hour after every drink? Should I just. Gulp. Give it up?

So, what to do? I think, on balance, my crohns disease in mind, I’m just going to have to bite the bullet and go cold turkey, or at the VERY least limit my consumption to meal times. Having recently given up coffee the lack of caffeine is going to be a serious problem, but I’ll ease myself in with a gentle weaning program and let you know how I go…

If anybody has any alternative suggestions that might allow me to keep drinking the bad stuff please let me know…I don’t have much fun left!

On a brighter note, it was also suggested to me that I should use a flouride rinse whilst using Invisalign. I have bought one, and will use it for the next month until I see my orthodontist, when I will question him on the pros and cons. He certainly didn’t suggest it, but it seems other people’s ortho’s have, so I’m willing to give it a go.

As a quick post script, there is an interesting table on drinks that eat teeth here:

One week in Invisalign Braces

admin — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:12:00 +0000

Well, I’m a week in and feeling pretty fantastic, all things considered. I can get my trays in and out swiftly and easily now, and they feel fairly comfortable, snug rather than tight, and the feeling of pressure has gone completely. In fact I have actually started to forget they are in and can finally concentrate on other things again, which wasn’t always the case in the first couple of days.

The thing that I am finding hardest is having the self discipline to keep them in for as many hours as you need to to get a good result. I am aiming for 22 hours a day, but frankly my social life keeps getting in the way! If you go out to dinner for 2-3 hours you’ve already blown it, unless you have no lunch or breakfast, and believe me that is never going to happen!

Yesterday we went to the beach, which was great fun but difficult with my Invisalign. I didn’t fancy getting sea water into them after the warnings the orthodondist has given me about germs in a swimming pool, so I only went waist deep into the sea, and couldn’t properly swim. Picnicing on the beach, which is always something of a trial with all the sandy fingers involved, is doubly difficult with Invisalign. I hid in our beach tent and got them out of my mouth and into my case without too many problems, but somehow whilst reinserting them I also managed to collect a few grains of sand between the trays and my teeth. I spent the rest of the afternoon crunching my teeth together and couldn’t decide whether it was horribly unpleasant or actually quite fun. It brought a whole new dimension to the term sandy crevices!

I managed to get myself in the social pages of our local paper this week. One of those things where the photographer hangs out at a party and takes shots of the guests to publish. The party was the opening of a flagship store of an upmarket lingerie company that a friend of mine has invested some money in. I happily posed and only about an hour later realised, in a fit of panic, that I had been standing in front of a wall of lingerie that might look somewhat questionable in a paper being read over the breakfast table. Actually though, when the picture came out the background was cropped and looked fine. My teeth, however, looked spectacular (well, compared to real life!). The photographer had insisted that we had to smile, so I am doing what I had thought was my specially perfected, teeth minimising, smile, but you can still see them. All I can say is thank the lord for photoshop (and a kind photographer!) Maybe this time next year they will actually look like this!

I’m the one on the left!

Pictures Of Me Wearing My Invisalign Braces

admin — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 05:33:00 +0000

I just wanted to show you what the trays look like in. Bear in mind that these pictures are VERY close up, they don’t look nearly as noticeable from a social distance. Also, I have a confession to make. Vanity has got the better of me and I have pressed the enhance button on my photo editing software for the second pic. What that does is make the teeth look a little whiter. Sorry, but they looked so diabolically yellow before that it was either a case of pressing that little button or not posting the picture!! Luckily my treatment plan involves whitening, but I haven’t started on that yet. I’m reserving that as tonight’s little drama…

Forgetting my Invisalign!

admin — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 04:30:00 +0000

Happily, I think things are improving here, as evidenced by my newfound inability to remember to put my Invisalign trays back in after meals!

This afternoon, after a frenzied bout of tidying my daughters revolting bedroom pre a relative’s visit, I suddenly realised about an hour in, that I had forgotten to put back in my invisalign. Doh! It seems that I have just stopped thinking about them as much. The truth is that as the pressure subsides, I have stopped noticing them in my mouth, and also, thank goodness, they have become much easier to insert and remove. I think I’m certainly improving my technique, but also it’s just becoming less stressful. I have stopped dreading it, it has simply become more of a pain, something that you sigh before hauling yourself out of your chair to do, than something that induces frantic, wailing, toddleresque tantrums. After a year of Invisalign I’ll be able to do it without thinking at this rate.

One little tip. When you get your first Invisalign’s you get a patient starter kit, which includes a couple of cases to store your braces in when you aren’t wearing them. TAKE THE CASE WITH YOU WHEN YOU GO OUT!!

Yesterday morning I trotted happily off to the shops, not even considering how long I would be or whether I would need to remove them whilst out. After a couple of dull hours of trudging the local mall searching for new school shoes for my children the whole family were ravenous.

Unfortunately, what I had failed to consider was that without my Invisalign case it was going to be fairly difficult to find somewhere sanitary and safe to keep my braces whilst we ate. So, rather than trying to wrap them in a paper napkin, something that the ortho had specifically offered dire warnings against doing because of the dangers of breaking them or throwing them away, I shlepped off to do the supermarket shopping, my stomach grumbling furiously, whilst the rest of the family ate lunch. As somebody who does NOT like to skip meals I was less than impressed with myself. Suffice to say that this was a lesson learned!

Invisalign clincheck videos

admin — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 01:45:00 +0000

These are my Invisalign clincheck videos. The top arches show my complete treatment, although of course refinements might be necessary. The bottom arches show the first phase only which doesn’t even begin to try and move the tooth that grows out across the bottom of my mouth. Even this first phase will take 34 trays on the bottom arches which sounds incredibly daunting from where I am currently sitting. For an explanation of why this one difficult tooth can’t be removed, please go back to the beginning of my blog at http://myhollywoodsmile.blogspot.com/2008/11/in-beginning.html

for the full gruesome explanation.

This first video shows my teeth pre treatment. I think they look much worse in real life than they do on here. The computer simulation doesn’t seem to fully reflect how far my top teeth project forward over my bottom teeth. In reality I can fit the top of my thumb between my top and bottom front teeth when my molars are biting together.

The second video shows both arches through treatment although this obviously this isn’t the final result for the bottom arches…

Top arches through treatment (17 trays plus refinements)

Bottom arches through first phase of treatment

2 days in Invisalign braces..and counting…

admin — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:54:00 +0000

I didn’t get the chance to post yesterday, and in hindsight that is probably a good thing as I was ready to throw my Invisalign trays in the bin at one point. However after almost 48 hours they are definitely getting easier. The biggest challenge from my point of view has been getting them in and out. Frankly, it’s a bitch. I have read other blogs of people “popping” them in and out, but that seems pretty far off at the moment. However, I must confess I have found them slightly more manageable this morning, which is probably partly improved technique and partly the fact that they are definitely loosening slightly as my teeth move.

Yesterday was New Years Eve, and we spent the day at Wet ‘n’ Wild theme park on the Gold Coast, probably not advisable for your first day in braces. One of the things that they told me at my fitting appointment was that you need to remove them for swimming. Depending where you live in the world, this may or may not be a huge inconvenience. As I live in Queensland, Australia, where the temperature was 29 degrees celcius at 10pm last night this is something of a pain as we spend half the summer in our pool trying to cool down.

I was nonetheless able to wear them for most of the day- I took them out for 15 minutes for breakfast, managed to keep them in on all the water slides at wet ‘n’ wild, simply by choosing the more sedate ones that don’t throw you underwater at the end. Lunchtime was something of a challenge and I ended up trying to surreptitiously get them out in the corner of one of the outdoor eating areas as the queue for the toilets was about 100 deep. I managed it after a few frustrating minutes, although to say it was a struggle would be something of an understatement.

In the evening we went to watch the 8.30pm firework display at South Bank Parklands in Brisbane. There was a huge party in the beach area, with everyone in the water dancing and swimming. Ordinarily it would have looked fun, but I wasn’t up for trying to take my braces out in the dark on a public beach, so we watched the fireworks and went home about 9. By that time they had been in all day, and I actually managed to get them out relatively easily, so we could jump in the pool and begin drinking Champagne. I kept them out for a couple of hours so I could be social and drink through the evening, but about 11pm I got in a panic that my teeth would have shifted back, so I went through the whole brushing, flossing rigmarole and got them back in to toast the New year in with a glass of water….the things I do for vanity! At least I am hangover free today though..

It did occur to me that as I have rather overindulged over the Christmas period and managed to gain 7 pounds in about 4 weeks, it might actually be a good thing if I continue to find taking the trays in and out an ordeal. I have already lost 1 pound in the first 48 hours, so if this continues it would be a very welcome side effect. If they could somehow also help me build muscle tone too….

I just wanted to write something about how they are affecting my speech- or rather- how they are not affecting my speech. For the first 2 minutes of wearing them I felt very slightly lispy, and each time I put them back in after eating it takes me a minute to readjust, but other than that, I have not noticed myself lisping at all. I have quizzed my husband on this and he says he can hear no difference whatsoever in my speech, so that is reassuring. All this from the man who declared on the way to my fitting appointment

“Just what every man has always dreamed of.. a wife with braces”

He was joking, but I haven’t quite let him forget it yet!