A picture speaks a thousand words- you know the old cliche… so I thought I would confine this post mostly to pictures. These are photos of my teeth before I started treatment and after 28 sets of Invisalign braces. I have one more upper refinement before I have finished with this run and I have 6 more lowers before we attempt to move my stray tooth over. You can now see just how horrendous my upper crown looks (next to my front tooth on the left) having moved. Fortunately when my trays are in it hides it to a great extent… I will get it fixed as soon as I am otherwise happy with my upper arch.

It’s interesting looking at the pictures of my aligners themselves just how my upper arch has rounded out, and also how the bottom arch has moved forward on the right hand side, but not yet on the left (where we are making room for that stray tooth.)
Let me know if you have any comments. I will be returning to my orthodontist in a couple of weeks to discuss what else I would like done to my upper arch- any suggestions gratefully received! Of course, I will keep you updated with more Invisalign before and after pictures as I take them..

It’s slow progress, but I think (and hope) it’s worth it!

I intended to follow the old English saying “start as you mean to go on” this year with my Invisalign Braces. So far, not so good.

In fact, not only did I pass midnight on New Year’s Eve without my braces in my mouth, I woke up with them on my bedside table on January the first. Not a great start.

This is actually a first for me. Although I am generally pretty poor in complying with the 22 hours a day Invisalign requirement (I average more like 20ish I think) I have never, ever left my aligners out overnight before! In fact, I’ve never even come close. Whilst I confess that I had consumed rather more alcohol than I might normally and that might have had something to do with it I am still amazed that I managed to go to bed and sleep the whole night (well, OK 1am to 9am!) without realising that something was missing. It took me less than 30 seconds to work out that my aligners weren’t in when I woke up, and a quick glance at my bedside table confirmed what I had suspected. Nonetheless despite my pounding head and the waves of nausea that let me know that I had drunk more than I have in many, many years I was still surprised that I had been drunk enough to forget my braces. I had thought that I was on autopilot these days when it comes to putting them in before bed. Obviously not!

I visited my orthodontist this week for my regular six weekly appointment and in a fit of raging guilt told him that I had a confession to make. He stood there, eyebrows raised expectantly with an expression I haven’t seen anybody wear since I left school, whilst I nervously weighed up whether or not to admit the whole sorry truth. However, I needn’t have worried. After admitting that I had left my braces out for a whole night he did nothing but snort, give a dismissive guffaw and tell me “That’s not a confession!” Apparently the girl in before me had left hers out for several days over Christmas and had to go back two aligners just to get them back in her mouth. So I picked the right time to confess I guess!

Despite me being so remiss all seems to be going reasonably well. I had 9 upper refinements (on top of my original 17 aligners) which consisted of 6 refinements and 3 over-corrections. I have now completed my first 6 refinements and I think there is still a little way to go before my teeth are absolutely finished on the top. My orthodontist told me that this is fairly standard; in fact most people who need refinements need to use the over-corrections. Over-corrections are given by Invisalign because those particular teeth proved stubborn to move the first time around and apparently they then usually remain resistant throughout treatment. For this reason he has told me to wear my next two upper over-corrections and he will then review my teeth again to see whether we are satisfied with the final positioning.

My bottom arch is now on aligner 26/34 and whilst I can see great progress my orthodontist is not convinced that there will be sufficient room after another 8 aligners to get my bottom wonky tooth (which you can see here on my clincheck) in to place. I am cautiously hopeful that he is wrong, but we shall see. If there isn’t enough room by number 34 we will have to do refinements (additional aligners) for the bottom row too. Funnily enough on my clincheck it always looked like there would be plenty of room long before the end and as my teeth seem to be tracking perfectly I am surprised that there isn’t. As my orthodontist has told me repeatedly the clincheck is only a guide, not gospel. Having read numerous other patients Invisalign stories I know that that is the truth. It seems that it doesn’t pay to get too wedded to the final result that the clincheck shows, it’s a useful estimate but nothing more.

There is no massive progress since the last Invisalign pictures that I posted ( you can see the highlights in the sidebar on the right) so I won’t post more now, but I’ll take more after these two over-correction uppers so you can give me your verdict on my upper arch. I think that I could do with a little more widening of my molars, but maybe the over-corrections will take care of that, we shall see. In the meantime I intend to try and make up for the misdemeanours of New Year’s Eve by being especially compliant in January. We shall see how long that lasts! At the very least I am happy that one year into treatment I am still loving my Invisalign.. Watch this space!

It occurred to me yesterday that it is almost exactly a year since I started wearing Invisalign and whilst I won’t be throwing the little plastic fellas a birthday party exactly, I thought it might be useful to reflect on how well the year has gone.

Firstly, have my teeth changed? Hell yes. When I look at that horrendous before picture in my right sidebar I’m not surprised that I never showed my teeth when I smiled. I’m actually just surprised that I left the house at all!
Not that I have perfect teeth now, in fact, I still have probably as long  to go again, if not longer. But I’m happy with that because I can see that things are moving in the right direction.
So to reflect on the good things to have come out of this whole process:

• My teeth look much, much better already. The thing that has made a particular difference in my opinion has been the widening of my upper arch. I knew that it needed to be done, I just didn’t know what a difference it would make.
• The tooth whitening. This made an enormous visual change to my smile and I plan to do some more when I am finished and all of my attachments are off. It was also a great boost at the start of the treatment. I can highly recommend the nitewhite that I used with my trays.
• My orthodontist is great, which is a huge relief. It was such a process to find a good orthodontist that I’m thrilled that it worked out so well.
• Wearing my Invisalign isn’t painful in any way. Of course, there is some pressure and tenderness at the beginning of some trays but there is no rubbing and chafing, no sores, nothing. I expected this to be much worse than it is. I’m not sure what I expected exactly, but I think it involved ucers, sores, waxes and many other horrors that I haven’t had to deal with.
• My oral hygiene has dramatically improved. I feel guilty now if I only floss three times a day. I hope this carries on after treatment at least to some extent. It’s also gratifying to actually be able to get the floss between my teeth, it used to be an exercise in physical force just to get the stuff between my teeth and out again without it breaking. These days I don’t even think about it.
• I just haven’t found wearing the things an ordeal. They aren’t that noticable, they aren’t that inconvenient, they just aren’t very difficult. Such minor inconvenience for such a great result seems a pretty happy balance to me.

Of course, not every aspect of Invisalign wearing is rosy … off the top of my head these are the things that I don’t like about my braces:

• I’m not as compliant in wearing my Invisalign I should be. I know that is my fault and not the fault of Invisalign but it still annoys me. Mainly it is just laziness and forgetfulness, less than admirable traits.  Still, it gives me something to add to my list of New Years Resolutions.
• I forgot to get my attachments removed before my upper refinements and then I forgot to ask my orthodontist why we didn’t remove them. Of course, there may well be a sound orthodontic reason for it, but I don’t know it so it annoys me!
• I keep losing the damn things. I’m sure if you’re a regular reader your pretty au fait with my inability to hold onto my Invisalign aligners, but honestly, in the next year I don’t want to go scrabbling through any more restaurant dustbins. Yes, it happened again last week. No, it wasn’t pretty.

On reflection there isn’t really anything that I would change about my Invisalign decision. Of course, I am yet to see the end result and that might change my feelings, but at what I assume to be about the halfway point I am thrilled with how things are going.

On a final note I just wanted to say thank you to the 65,000 of you (yes really) that have read this blog over the last year. Your comments, helpful suggestions and support have been much appreciated.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Keep smiling…

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.

I had reached a point with my Invisalign braces somewhere around set 10 where I felt so comfortable with the whole process that I was almost coasting through to the end of my first run of 17 aligners for my upper arch. I felt that I knew what was to be expected with each set, I had mastered the whole insertion/removal/cleaning palaver, and I wasn’t anticipating any surprises.

Then came set 12. Like some of my earlier aligners these were extremely difficult to insert the first time, particularly on the bottom arch. However, usually with each new set I have half an hour or so of minor discomfort, then a gentle pressure for the next 12-24 hours, and then they feel like an old comfortable pair of trainers. But not these babies. 5 days after first inserting them they were still tight despite 21+ hours of wear per day. It felt like being back in the early days of set 1. Not only were they tight, but I was able to feel exactly which teeth they were moving. My upper arches are definitely being expanded outwards and the my right front tooth is being pushed backwards into the correct alignment, as is the ugly old crown next to it. In fact, my crown has become slightly wobbly over the last couple of weeks.

This isn’t as alarming as it sounds as I don’t think the crown itself will fall off and leave me gappy and toothless(but watch this space!); rather, the root feels like it is moving around inside the gum due to the pressure. Looking at my clincheck I can see that this tooth has undergone some fairly significant shifting in the last 6 months so I’m not altogether surprised that it has some movement; it does feel slightly odd nonetheless. It reminds me of being six years old and the temptation to worry it with my tongue and try and increase the wobbliness is almost overwhelming!

Set 13 have also been difficult. In fact they are so hard to remove that they have developed a fairly major split where my bottom stray tooth is. When previous sets have done this (although to a much lesser extent) my orthodontist has been fairly relaxed and just advised that I keep wearing them as long as they are able to be worn, so that is my policy with this set. I can still feel them putting pressure on my teeth so hopefully they are doing what they are meant to. I’m sure I’ll find out when I try and insert the next set!

I’d be the first to admit to my hypochondria- in fact I almost certainly have several life threatening conditions as we speak- but I am coming to the conclusion that Invisalign may be giving me migraines. It’s not that I have headaches on a daily basis, but with the tighter sets I seem to get fairly serious headaches for the first couple of days. I have read elsewhere that other people take a couple of painkillers on the first day of each set of new aligners as a matter of course. Due to my crohn’s disease (and my hypochondria) I’m not fond of painkillers so I’ve never done that- perhaps that would have solved the problem. I’d be interested to know whether other people have found this though, or whether it is just the product of my overactive imagination.

One of the dire warnings that my orthodontist gave me at the beginning of this process was to always put my aligners straight into their case as soon as I take them out of my mouth so that they don’t get lost or accidently thrown away. Of course, if I could consistently remember to take my cases with me wherever I went this would be exactly what I would do. The problem is that I constantly forget them, so my aligners end up deposited in the most sanitary place I can find. Usually this will be inside a paper napkin, and there have been several times where I have had to chase waiters across a restaurant or cafe to root through the remnants of a meal looking for the discarded napkin that contains my braces. Classy. Last week though I surpassed myself. I had taken my daughter to soccer practice at 8am and in all the confusion of lost shoes and unbrushed hair had made it out of the door without any breakfast. Luckily soccer practice is near a bakery so I bought myself a cheese croissant, merrily tucked my aligners into the brown paper bag it came in and ate my food. You can guess the rest. I offloaded my rubbish to my husband who immediately screwed the brown paper bag into a tight ball and shoved it into his back pocket. It wasn’t until about 20 minutes later that it suddenly dawned on me that my braces were now not only wrapped, but scrunched up. I’m not saying that that necessarily has anything to do with the huge crack in set 13….

One thing that is starting to worry me is that my teeth look SO much better with my aligners in. Not only do they look straighter, they look whiter too. My whole arch looks bigger and seems to fill my mouth more with my aligners in, so I wonder whether I’ll ever manage to be happy with my natural teeth at the end of this. Much as I haven’t minded my aligners through this process I was hoping to be rid of them at some point in the future…during the days at least. Hopefully as I have only 4 sets left on my uppers they will transform in the next 8 weeks and I’ll feel differently. I think taking the attachments off will help.

I’ll post more pictures in the next couple of days. My teeth are looking much better from straight on, but my bottom teeth are still a long way back so my overbite is still pretty huge. Only 21 more trays for that arch…..

I finally have photographic evidence that my teeth are really, really improving. I took my daughters to a function last week at which there was a professional photographer taking photos. Usually in such situations I just do my usual closed mouth, tight lipped, teeth concealing smile. However, this was a woman photographer and she was fierce! There was no way she was going to accept anything less than a full on toothy, Hollywood smile. So, in the interests of leaving there in one piece I went for it.

The amazing thing was that I saw the pictures on screen and my teeth look good. I mean really good, like straight, well proportioned teeth. Ok, they aren’t yet Hollywood perfect, but compared to how they were before I started Invisalign, they are fantastic. I think what has changed is that my upper arches are starting to widen and fill out my mouth. One of the reasons (and not the only one, believe me!) that my teeth used to look so terrible is that I have a Julia Roberts sized mouth, but with a toddler sized set of teeth. My arches simply weren’t wide enough to fill my smile. Thankfully that seems to be changing.

I have spent a lot of time looking at close up comparison pictures of my teeth, analysing them for tiny changes without realising that, actually, it is from a distance that the improvements are most noticeable. Even my husband told me this week “your arches definitely look wider. ” Of course, being a woman I had to ask him, “Does that look better?” to which I got the response “ummm, yes?”

The thing is whether he thinks so or not, I think they look better. It is a little strange though, to see this new look evolving. I have always seen myself as someone with bad teeth and to suddenly find myself needing to reevaluate that self image is exciting. Yes, I know it’s pure vanity, and vacuous, and all those other terrible things, but hey, let’s be honest, this whole $6300 dollar escapade is really just an expensive beauty treatment. I might be telling people that I’m doing it because my bite alignment might cause me jaw pain in later life, but the reality is… well, I made that story up to hide my embarrassment over how vain I am!

I am including below a comparison of my set 1 and set 11 aligners. There is definite evidence now of the widening of my upper arches. I can’t for the life of me see a lot of difference on the lower arches other than that the gap is beginning to open to allow my wonky tooth to move in. I’ll let you be the judges though.

All has been a breeze with set 11. Let’s hope it continues this way!

Once or twice I have watched Extreme makeover, that show where ordinary people undergo transformations through plastic surgery and dental procedures to make themselves look and feel better. Or, at least, that’s the idea. The thing that has always struck me about the whole “reveal” experience on those shows is that very often the thing that makes the most difference is not the breast enlargements, the liposuction or the face lifts, it’s their new teeth. The teeth alone can make someone look ten years younger, wealthier, healthier- like a completely different person.

Set 1
Set 7
Set 7
apologies for the lack of focus.