First Day...

Before I get into how the day went, I forgot to mention on my last post that I got my teeth shaved when I went in to pick up the trays. It really wasn't bad at all. There was no pain and it only took about ten minutes. They used the a strip that's a little like sand paper. It was about 3 inches long and half a centimeter wide and was very thin.  They used motions similar to flossing and shaved just enough so that my teeth weren't so tightly packed together. There aren't any gaps, but when I brushed my teeth last night and looked at them in the mirror I did notice it. The way I would describe it is that I looked, saw a dark line in the crease between 2 teeth. I almost thought it was a small piece of a hair right there in the crease but then I remembered about the shaving. So it really isn't noticeable. Now.....onto today's experience.

I woke up, felt that my teeth had adjusted a little better to the trays, and took them off to get ready for school. I'm not going to lie....my teeth hurt - a lot. Not all of my teeth. Just a few. I'm assuming they hurt so much because they are the teeth that this tray will be moving. The teeth that hurt the worst were: the left front 3 on the bottom, and the right front 3 on the top. They only hurt for about a minute or 2 after I took them off and right when I put them back on. I'm eating foods that don't require too much chewing or any foods that are hard because that would probably be very painful. I get really nervous that I might break the top tray because it is pretty difficult to get it off of the front teeth, so hopefully it'll be ok. I try to be very careful with it since a new tray will cost another $100.

I'm trying to get myself into a routine. The girl that was helping me at the appointment yesterday told me it's very important to make sure you get a routine down early in the process to make the best of it. I (hopefully) will be soaking the trays in polident in the mornings when I get ready, put them in, take them out for lunch, eat, brush the trays and my teeth, put them back in, take them out for a snack, brush them and my teeth again, leave them in, take them out for dinner, brush them and my teeth again, leave them in until bedtime when I will brush them and my teeth again for the last time of the day, and leave them in for the night. It is quite a hassle, but it's 100% worth it to avoid getting a cavity. I've never had one and don't ever want one.

One thing that has been helping with the pain (aside from pills) are the aligner chewies. They are little cylinders made out of a firm foam material. They are supposed to help make sure the trays are sitting well on your teeth. They are also supposed to help loosen the ligaments of the teeth and make the straightening process more efficient. I find that they relieve a lot f pressure too. I was advised to use the chewies for 10 minutes a day. These 10 minutes don't have to be all at once as long as the total time throughout the day adds to 10. I use them when I'm just watching tv or surfing the web. Well, that's it for day 1. I'll post again with more info and probably some pics of the trays in a few days.