Tray 32

Well, another four weeks and another two trays completed. Before I get into the events of the past month, I want to mention one thing that I keep forgetting about. I actually only have 20 bottom trays and 23 top trays with this 2nd round. This makes a lot of sense since my bottom teeth were never really as bad as my top teeth. Now onto this past month.

Like last time, it's been a pretty routine month. Every day consists of me getting up in the morning and soaking/cleaning my trays while I get ready. I brush my teeth and pop them back in before I leave my apartment. I take them out to eat and brush my teeth before I put them back in. And I take the trays out and brush them along with my teeth before I go to bed. I think when you have such a large set of trays, you get used to all of the brushing and cleaning and rinsing. It just becomes part of your daily schedule. But it can also become cumbersome when you've been wearing the trays for so long (about a year and a half in my case) and you just want to be done. I think it really takes discipline to keep up with the routine and make sure you are actually wearing the trays enough. This is really something to take into consideration when weighing the options between Invisalign and traditional braces. You don't have the choice of taking off traditional braces like you do with Invisalign, but this means you could forget to put the trays back on, which may prolong treatment. I just wanted to point this out. If you have teeth that you know will require quite a few trays, think about whether you will actually be able to keep up with it through the end.

Anyway, enough of my lecture. I did have an appointment with my orthodontist this past week. I received more trays; enough to get me through the holidays. If you do get Invisalign, be sure your orthodontist does this. This is especially important for people like me who go out of town for the holidays. I go home once school lets out for winter break, so an appointment during that time would be a little inconvenient because I live almost 6 hours away from Austin. I actually know of a situation in which a woman was not able to take her daughter to an appointment because the orthodontist left town without informing his patients and she was not able to get another appointment for a month. The daughter was having her lower jaw pulled forward by her braces. By the time she finally got to see the orthodontist, her lower jaw had been pulled forward too far and her orthodontist told her she would need jaw surgery in order to fix it and he took no responsibility for what happened. This was NOT my orthodontist in case anybody was wondering. And although this does not relate to Invisalign per se, I think it is just a good example of choosing your orthodontist wisely and making sure you get everything you need for the holidays so nothing bad happens. But this woman and her poor daughter had no choice in the matter. I'm the type of person who likes to have a plan, a backup plan, and a backup plan for my backup plan so I just want everybody to be cautious and prepared. So that's basically the moral of that story.

Also at this past week's appointment, my orthodontist told me he would start the process of smoothing out my teeth at my next appointment. I mentioned in a previous post that my top front teeth are shaped a little weird because the edges are very thick (marginal ridges), causing there to be a dip in the center of those individual teeth. So he will work at smoothing down those ridges so that my teeth do not dip and look a little more normal. But since it is holiday season, I'll have to wait until January before this happens. Oh and before I forget, I will be doing the bigger posts every 8 trays for this set instead of every 10 trays since I have 23 top trays. That should be it for this post. If I think of anything else or remember something I'm forgetting, I'll make sure to include it in my next post. As always, here are the pictures (I found my actual camera so I was able to take pictures of my teeth this time. Yay!) I also included a picture with the trays on so you can compare these to the first set that had attachments and were made using traditional putty molds whereas these new trays were made using the iTero scanner. All of this makes the Invisalign trays even less visible than the first set in my opinion, but you can judge for youself.

Facial

Center

Wearing Trays

Not Wearing Trays

Top Arch

 

 

Lower Arch