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Why Your Invisalign Dentist Provides A Free Case…

October 29, 2009 by admin 14 Comments

Invisalign case

Invisalign Case

This is a story of something that really happened on my holiday in the UK and why you should always carry your Invisalign case (If you’ve lost your Invisalign case find a new one here!). (Incidentally, the slightly squeamish amongst you may wish to stop reading this post at this point; skip merrily to the next entry– trust me on this.)
When I picked up my aligners for the first time my orthodontist was very clear about one thing. That you should never, ever, whatever else you do, wrap your aligners in paper tissues or napkins when you take them out to eat. I looked at him earnestly, nodded my understanding and then promptly went on my way to set about doing exactly that.

Until recently it hadn’t been too much of a problem. There had been a couple of close calls, a few chases across restaurants as the waiter cleared my plate, snatching aligners from the jaws of waste disposal units, but nothing too serious. I have always known that I am useless at remembering to take my aligner cases with me, but it didn’t seem like a big enough problem that I should actually change my behaviour. Until now.

I took my children to a petting farm whilst on holiday. One of those places where little people get to hand feed lambs, watch a cow being milked, climb a few hay bales, torment terrified chickens- I’m sure you’ve seen the kind of places. After a couple of hours we were all starving so we trudged along to the “restaurant” – a marvel of formica, polystyrene and plastic chairs with just a whiff of manure still lingering in the air, all set in an old metal milking shed. It was a counter service place, so after washing our hands we loaded a tray with some sandwiches and drinks and sat down. My children were tired and tetchy by this point so there was much bribing and cajoling to get them to sit in their seats and eat their food. As ever I had forgotten my Invisalign case, so I happily whipped out my braces behind my hand and wrapped them in one of those white paper napkins that such places have. By the end of the meal my children were desperate to go and jump on the adventure playground that had been beckoning to them through the open door all mealtime, so I swiftly wiped their grubby faces, picked up the tray and placed it in a tray rack over by the exit.
It was about 10 minutes before the empty feeling in my mouth alerted me to the fact that my aligners were now- somewhere. I didn’t like to think too much where. So, leaving my children with my mother I sprinted (believe me, not something you will see very often) back to the restaurant to find my discarded tray. Of course it was gone. Long ago cleared by the very efficient lady who took the trays and deposited the waste from everyone’s meals into the huge black dustbins at the back of the restaurant.




At this point I knew that my braces were gone. There was no way I would would be either willing or able to find them amongst the half eaten scraps of so many meals. Except there was just one tiny problem. I was in the UK in the depths of country Dorset, 28 hours flight from my home in Australia and 3 hours drive from my only other set of aligners in the UK. Those only spares (my next set, not due to be worn for 5 more days) were sitting in my spare Invisalign case in my husband’s suitcase somewhere north of London where he had gone to work. For some crazy reason I had thought that him keeping the spares would be a safer idea. Consequently, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to get to the spare set for at least four days, and to any other set for four weeks. Not good. Not good at all.
I had a choice to make. Abandon the braces there and then and be braceless for the best part of a week, having completely eliminated the possibility of finding them. Or, forage through the bins, arm deep in other peoples half eaten meals, find the aligners and then figure out whether or not to actually wear them. So forage I did. The very nice lady who cleared the tables looked at me in a very bemused manner but kindly gave me a pair of rubber gloves and I in return told her the little white lie that my eight year old had removed her braces and left them on the tray, and that I needed to find them because they cost $5000. I know you shouldn’t blame your children for your mistakes, but I am putting this one down as karma for all the times that my daughter has embarrassed me.I’m not sure why but I just couldn’t bring myself to give the lady a truthful explanation of the whole sorry, humiliating tale.
There were two bins that they tipped scraps into. Each of them larger than a household bin, just above waist high, but wide; wide enough that it was a stretch to lean across them. They were three quarters full of food scraps, balled up napkins, half finished drinks- you name it, it was in there. Very carefully I set about lifting every paper napkin and delicately squishing it to feel whether my aligners were inside. It took about 10 stomach churning minutes of bending over the enormous bin, backside high in the air as I went on tiptoes to reach far enough into the bin to get to everything. 10 long minutes of rooting amongst the detrius, the sandwiches with a single bite taken, the yoghurt coated chips, the large wet splodges of cold baked beans that seemed to have attached themselves to every other piece of rubbish, before I finally found them; still nestled safely inside the napkin, wrapped tight and unsullied, a little wetter than when I left them- but there.
I couldn’t face putting them in though. Even after sterilising them thoroughly, brushing them, soaking them for twice the recommended time in denture cleaner. Even though I knew that they had stayed wrapped in the napkin and were probably just as clean as when I had lost them. I still couldn’t bring myself to actually put them into my mouth. I don’t know if it was the dustbin, or the half eaten food, or the proximity of so many animals that put me off, but I just couldn’t do it.
So I set about a series of frantic phone calls: to my husband, my mother in law and my brother. Somehow from the jaws of disaster, and after no more than 40 minutes of pure unadulterated begging, pleading and negotiating, my dear, dear, slightly bemused brother came up trumps. He was coming to Dorset anyway to see me the next day, and via a series of complicated 25 mile detours would meet up with my husband on the way and deliver my spare, fresh, sparkling new aligners to me. I would have to wait more than 12 hours to get them, but I figured it would be worth it just to avoid having to choose between 5 brace free days and the inevitable alignment problems that would cause and wearing “bin braces” and the potential revulsion/sickness that would cause.
I’d love to be able to say that since this whole sorry episode I have been ever diligent about putting my Invisalign case in my bag whenever I leave the house, but somehow, although less forgetful than before, I am still not perfect at remembering. So if any of you have any tips as to how to remember these things or can even reassure me that I am not alone in my stupidity I would love to hear from you via the comments section.


Filed Under: cleaning invisalign, invisalign cases, invisalign dentist, travelling with invisalign Tagged With: aligner cases, braces cases, cleaning invisalign, denture cleaner, invisalign braces, invisalign case, invisalign cleaning, invisalign cost, invisalign prices, invisible braces, lost invisalign, orthodontist, steradent invisalign, sterilising invisalign

Invisalign- taking a break at Disney World

October 8, 2009 by admin 1 Comment

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.

Filed Under: airplane invisalign, Choosing an Invisalign orthodontist, invisalign, invisalign flying, invislalign blogs, travelling with invisalign Tagged With: airline, aligners, invisalign, invisalign braces, invisalign compliance, invisible braces, orthodontist, travelling with invisalign, trays

About Me

Ex model, mother, English & Australian. 2 daughters, 1 dog, 2 cats, 2 rabbits, a horribly expensive beauty habit and an obsession with straight teeth.

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