My Invisalign Blog

My Invisalign Braces Experience

Travelling With Invisalign Braces…Tip #1

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Well, sorry folks, it’s been a while. Yet again I have been off globetrotting with scant, if any, regard for my blog; so my apologies that my updates have been rather thin on the ground lately. The good news is that I have been merrily collecting tips for travelling with Invisalign whilst on holiday – or rather, what not to do as the case turned out.

It all started so well. I had remembered to carefully pack an extra wash bag filled with all of the Invisalign supplies that I might need on holiday- the sterilising tablets, the floss, the emergency Colgate Wisps,(#aff link) the spare toothbrushes- you get the picture. I had also packed a tiny version in my carry on bag containing everything I might need to get me through the trials of a 24 hour flight from Australia to the Uk. Brushing your teeth in plane toilets is one of the joys that everyone should try to avoid as much as possible, so my plan was to abandon all pretence of wearing my Invisalign for 22 hours on the flight, try to manage about 16 hours, and hope for the best.

With all of the scurrying about, last minute emptying of the fridge, frantic unpacking and repacking of children’s cases to search for missing toys in response to tear stained pleas that a month long trip entails, I didn’t have time to have breakfast before leaving for our 8am flight. So, as is my usual style I whipped out my Invisalign, grabbed a snack bar and a nutritious bottle of diet coke (I know, I know) and headed out to the taxi clutching passports, drink bottles, favourite teddy bears and a thousand other bits and bobs in my clammy, overspilling hands.

Travelling with Invisalign - pack your aligners! Image of suitcases

Travelling with Invisalign – pack your aligners!

Thirty minutes later we were at the airport, bags checked in, feeling surprisingly calm and organised when I suddenly remembered that my Invisalign weren’t in my mouth. After two minutes of frantic rifling I realised, with a leaden stomach, that they were neither in my handbag or my carry on bag. That left two options; they were either in a checked in packed suitcase, or sitting nonchalently at home on the top of my coffee machine. Of course, whilst I had packed the lower aligners that I needed to change to in a fortnight, I had forgotten to pack my previous set as a back up and as the top aligners were my last ones in the series. This meant If I didn’t find them I would have no upper braces for a month.

Two minutes later I was back in a cab, hyperventilating and begging the poor bewildered driver to speed through suburban Brisbane to get back to my house as fast as possible. At this point I knew that it was a round trip of about an hour from airport to my house and that it was about an hour and twenty minutes until my 24 hour, non refundable flight took off, with or without me.

Fortunately, my taxi driver rose to the occasion admirably, his foot never leaving the floor, and seat belt burns not withstanding, we made it to my house in around 22 minutes, a record. Of course, after a frantic two minute search which included a quick scan of all the most likely places that I dump my braces I simply could not find them. Anywhere. I ran from room to room becoming increasingly hysterical and much to taxi drivers amusement even ran back out into the garden and began foraging through the dustbin in an attempt to find them. Finally, after about six frantic minutes I came to the conclusion that they must be in my checked in bags, grabbed the previous sets from a drawer to wear on the journey and flew back into the taxi to start another hair raising grand prix back to the airport.

We made the flight. Just. By the skin of our teeth.

Travelling with Invisalign - image of plane toilet

Travelling with Invisalign – brushing in the plane toilet is not an experience to be savoured!

Of course, it was the usual joy on board of the rigmarole of 24 hours of putting in aligners, being offered a drink, removing aligners, drinking, squeezing past other passengers,queuingg for toilets, attempting to brush teeth in the fist sized, stained sink, returning to seat, five minutes later being offered food, removing aligners….you get the picture. Invisalign on planes are hard even if you aren’t squeezing your teeth into the previous set that you had stopped wearing a week ago. I don’t think I managed to wear them more than about 12 hours out of the 24, and even that was fraught with inconvenience.

It took me 24 hours after we arrived to get over my jet lag sufficiently to launch the search through our 90 kilos of luggage for my set six aligners. Despite checking the fifteen thousand small suitcase pockets, every washbag, the ten thousand pencil cases that my children deem necessary for a months holiday, they simply weren’t there.

Stuck in the Uk, on the other side of the world from my orthodontist, we had extensive email discussions back and forth about what exactly I could do to get my teeth from set 5 top and bottom that I was currently wearing, into the set 8 lower that I had in my bag. In all of the palaver, I had also forgotten set 7. Yes, I really am that stupid. I was astonished to be told that replacements would cost me $600. Gulp. Not only a stupid mistake but a costly one too.

So, to avoid the $600, with a little encouragement, some panadol, and a surprising amount of brute force, I actually managed to move my teeth from set 5 lower, to set 8 lower, skipping two whole sets.This incidentally is really not advisable except in dire emergencies. Hell, they were tight. There were moments, trying to force them onto my teeth where I wasn’t sure whether my teeth or the aligners would break first, but nonetheless, they went in in the end.

My instructions from my orthodontist were then to wear set 8 for three weeks before moving onto set 9 as normal. In the meantime, to also wear set 5 upper as retainers.

Home safe and sound I am still waiting for my orthodontists appointment to find out the damage I have done to my treatment. To this day, having looked through my whole house, I have no idea where set six went- only that they are gone, and it appears gone for good.

So, tip #1 for travelling with Invisalign. Remember to take them with you….

Invisalign Refinements Are In!

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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.

Invisalign refinements are in! Image of an invisalign aligner

Invisalign Refinements are in!

Apparently, Invisalign refinements 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 of the Invisalign refinements. 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…

Invisalign- taking a break at Disney World

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OK, first things first. I have an apology to make. You see, I have spent the last month, gallivanting, for want of a better word and have sadly neglected my blog. My only defence is that I have had very limited opportunities to access the internet as I have flitted from Australia to the UK, over to the US, back to the UK for a week and then back to Australia. It’s a hard knock life…

With over 80 hours spent in the air and 28 nights away from my home this has presented me with a fair few challenges when it comes to Invisalign compliance. Challenges that I am sad to say that I have not risen to, exactly.

Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t given up on my Invisalign by any stretch of the imagination, but the difficulties associated with cleaning my aligners whilst travelling, coupled with being in retention for my top arches whilst still in treatment for my bottom has meant that I have been very, very, very lax.

Invisalign on holiday - picture of my family.

Invisalign at Disney World – lots of junk food, not much aligner wearing!

Safe to say that it’s probably easier to tell you what I have done, rather than what I haven’t. I have worn my top aligners every night faithfully. The only exceptions to this have been the two 24 hour flights between Australia and the UK when I simply couldn’t figure out what was night and what was day and so I just wore them for odd random periods whilst I attempted to snatch a little bit of that junk sleep that you get on planes. I don’t think that I have always managed exactly 12 hours on every one of my 28 nights away, sometimes it may have been nearer to 10 and a half, but I have made up for it by forgetting that I am supposed to take my top aligners out on some days and so have worn them for the full 22 hours of my pre refinement days. .

(If my orthodontist is reading this, please, please, for both our sakes, stop here!)

OK, now for the bottom aligners. Regular readers will remember me telling you that I find it much more difficult to remember to wear the bottom aligners only. This is because I really don’t notice them at all; which must be a good thing, right? The downside is that several times I have taken them out at breakfast, merrily popping them into their case and then remembered at lunchtime that I had never put them back in. Oops.

Travelling in itself provides a fair few inconveniences when it comes to Invisalign. Firstly, no sooner had I got onto a plane than I would be offered a drink. This was lovely and with 8 or 10 boring hours ahead I wasn’t ready to decline it but it did require me to take my braces out even before take off. Having finished my drink there was no opportunity to get up and brush my teeth before we lifted off so I opted to leave them out, knowing that another drink would turn up just after take off. No sooner than I had finished that second drink I would see my lunch clattering it’s way down the aisle. Halfway through lunch my 6 year old would decide she was DESPERATE for the toilet and we would try and extricate ourselves from under our tray tables, clambering across seats sending cutlery and drinks flying to get there. Having worked through the balletic complexities of two people in one tiny plane toilet, one of them a 6 year old terrified of the roar that plane toilets make when they flush, then manoeuvred ourselves back through the aisles to the whole clambering, spilling routine again, I had had enough. By the time I had finally sat back down and finished my lunch I could barely be bothered to get up and line up for the toilet again just to brush my teeth.

On one particular flight I simply gave up and left them out altogether for 8 hours. They felt tight afterwards, but I got them in and hopefully no harm done. My appointment with my ortho next week will confirm that one way or another. I may be back here, tail between my legs having been ordered back several stages, but I am cautiously optimistic.

We spent one of our weeks at Disney World in Florida and I found this too a challenge. I figured we walked approximately 70 miles that week, criss crossing backwards and forwards across the parks, chasing rollercoasters and small over exuberant mice, so I reckoned this gave me licence to gorge myself on all the enormous buffets and junk food on offer- which I duly did. My reckoning was right because my waistline didn’t suffer; squeezing myself into my clothes was no more difficult than before. Squeezing my teeth into my trays however was a lot more difficult. I could tell that I had been less compliant than I normally am by the force required to get them properly seated on my teeth..

Of course, being on holiday and more relaxed that normal means that it is remarkably easy to convince yourself that you are actually doing what you are supposed to do. Sitting by the pool on a lounger flicking idly through a trashy mag I would tell myself that my orthodontist had expressly told me that I was not allowed to wear my aligners whilst swimming, so I was actually doing the right thing by not wearing them. I find it alarmingly easy to delude myself!

The good thing about this holiday is that I have come back full of energy and ready to attack things with a renewed vigour. This includes my invisalign wearing which I am now going to be so, so, so much more disciplined about. Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.