"Let's Get this (Refinement) Party Started!

So I went to the ortho today to get started on this refinement process. In my last post I mentioned that the ortho thought we would be able to do the refinements in 5 trays or less and possibly no attachments. WRONG!
I was pretty upset about the outcome and reluctantly let them place 4 more attachements on. 2 on my front right tooth, 1 on the tooth right next to it, and the 4th one on a lower inscisor. And there are 10 trays (5 on the bottom)! And they had to do some IPR between my front teeth so that they will come together like they're supposed to... so now.. another gap! :( I hate life right now.

As you can see in the pictures below, my front right tooth (left in the pics) is not straight up and down. Most of the work being done is to straighten that tooth out by torquing the root, hence the two attachments on that tooth.  This tooth has been a problem the entire treatment, so no surprise there.

Anyway, after they saw how upset I was, she offered to just stop where I was and go to retainers, then I reminded myself how much money I've put into these things and decided I better keep going.

There were some pluses though;
-She showed me my new clin-check and it made me realize they are fixing things I didn't even realize was wrong because I was too focused on my two front teeth and that darn gap.

-I convinced her that we should try 10 days for each tray since I'm almost done. This will take me from 140 days to 100!
She didn't want to at first but I reminded her how compliant I've been. We agreed to 10 days on the condition that if the new tray doesn't feel right, I will wear the previous trays for the full 14 days. And when I come back in 3 trays, she will reevaluate and see if this is still a good option for me.

-The last three trays are over-correction trays, so it will be up to me if I think I need to wear them to pull everything in a little tighter or not.


All in all, I left the office feeling pretty good again after seeing how awesome my teeth will look (in theory) when all is said and done! :)

Without Trays Beginning Refinement 9/10/2013

With Trays Beginning Refinement 9/10/2013

Waiting For Refinements - Initial Round Is Over

Well... I had my ortho appointment this last week. She removed my attachments, man does it feel weird to have smooth teeth again!

I had an issue with one side not completely closing like my bite was off. She stuck this red piece of paper in my mouth and when you bite down, it leaves little red mark on your teeth where the top and bottom hit together. From that, she said she could "shape" one of my teeth (shave it off a little) and see if that helps. I was skeptical, but it worked!
She then told me to look at my teeth. She said they look amazing but told me to look at them good and really be critical and let her know if there was anything I didn't like. I asked her if I was just paranoid that my front teeth weren't as close together as they should be, kind of hoping she would tell me I was just paranoid. Her response was that she knows that was my main concern going into this and that she wants to make sure I'm completely happy, so we're doing refinements. Basically what's going to happen is that there will be a few more trays so that it kind of pulls everything in a little more and tightens everything up a bit. She thought that it would only be around 5 trays and we could probably do it without attachments!!! :)
Oh! And whitening is included with my treatment, but normally at the end. I asked about it today to find out the details for sure. Then went ahead and gave me a whitening kit to use since I don't have attachments for at least the next two weeks! :)

I will update again once I know what refinements are going to bring for sure. I have my appointment to go back in on September 6th.

I will also post pictures later of the whitening results. Just one treatment made a HUGE difference!

8/22/13

5/11/2012

Waiting... trying to be patient...

I realize I haven't posted for a while. There hasn't really been any new developments to update with. I am currently on my last set of trays for the initial round. YAY!!!

My son started first grade earlier this week, and I took some pictures of the two of us. I made one of them a the lock screen on my cell phone. Yesterday, I kept picking up my phone and thinking, "WOW, who's that hot mama?" LOL I love my new smile!

I go in a week from today. I will find out at the appointment if I need refinements or if I am done. I'm ok either way really, I've just grown accustomed to them now and feel naked without them in. I can't imagine what it will be like to go all day without these things in. I don't know for sure, but I'm assuming I'll eventually get down to night time wear only for retainers, hopefully that will be sooner than later.

I will update again in a week after my appointment when I have more news, and I know they'll be taking pictures for me again! :)

I Can't Stop Smiling!!

Another orthodontist appointment yesterday...
I got my new trays and put them in at my appointment yesterday. I had them in for about 3 hours and by the time I took them out for lunch...

Tray 25 without trays 5/31/2013

I have a FLOSS-ABLE space between my font teeth!!! :) :) :)

The space is still not completely closed, but it is pretty darn close! I when I run a piece of floss through, it touches both teeth now. :) I would imagine that if it was someone else looking at me, they wouldn't notice anymore, but I do since I'm currently teeth obsessed. LOL

Update! So as I was typing this I went to take some pictures and apparently my teeth have moved more!!! :) I'm calling this case closed!!! :)

Everyone in the office has been really excited for me. We went back and looked at my ClinCheck from where I started and man! I can't believe those were my teeth!! I'm now in trays 25 of 30! I can see the downhill side now. My orthodontist said that my teeth are tracking great because I'm so good about wearing my trays like I'm supposed to. There is still a chance for refinements, but at this point I'm not thinking about it. I'm just really glad that everything is finally "coming together." (Pun intended)

Tray 25 with trays 5/31/2013

P.S. The two front teeth look a little crooked. I'm not too concerned at this point as they have gone from straight to crooked and back again throughout this process. I'm sure with the remaining five trays, it will be straight in the end. :)

And a comparison photo from shortly after I started... :)

July 2012

Invisalign Assist? Yes Please! And new Smart Track Material

I went in to find out what the bad news was this time after having my teeth scanned at tray 20. Again, some attachments were taken off/moved/added. This time though, I still have nine attachments but on eight teeth instead of seven. The two on the front tooth were taken off, but two more were put on the other front tooth. They do look a little smaller than the last ones though, so that's good news!

The bad news? Well, sorta bad news... I was scheduled for 26 trays, I now will have 30 on top and 29 on the bottom. This pushes my end time back a couple of months, but I'm pretty ok with that, surprisingly. I think partially because I KNOW this will definitely be it, unless I do refinements. There will be no scanning again at tray 30, because there will be no where to go, I will be at my end game! :)
P.S. I'm officially done with 2/3 done with the first round! I finally have an end point!

We hadn't previously discussed retainers at all, but I knew it was coming. She mentioned that I would have the "plastic retainers", I'm assuming Vivera, but she didn't say for sure. The other thing she said, didn't ask, but said, was that I was going to have a bonded retainer on the back of my top front teeth. Those babies aren't going anywhere! Keep in mind, very nice, caring and fun lady I'm dealing with here. If I absolutley didn't want it, I'm sure she would listen to my reasoning and ultimately do what is going to make me happy.
The reason that I hadn't brought up the subject with her yet was that I wasn't sure if I wanted a bonded retainer or not. I kept going back in forth in my mind. Like she said, I'm prone to the gaps and she doesn't want it coming back! Neither do I!
Case closed! :)

The other thing that I asked about was the likeliness of refinements. I specifically asked if these "progress scans" every 10 trays seemed to cut down on the necessity of refinements, she said yes it does! :) I was relieved to have my hunch confirmed.
She also quickly followed that with - "but we will do them if you want them!" with a smile on her face, of course, because that's who she is.

Still waiting for that pesky gap between my two front teeth to close. It's all but gone now! We looked through the scans today, because I HAD to know, and Dr. Janna told me it should be a "flossable" space at tray 26 or 27. Unless I just feel a little crazy, I probably won't post pics again until I feel like it's "closed".

Oh! And! The new aligners are the Smart Track material. I really have no opinion on them yet. They're supposed to hold up a little longer instead of being real tight at first and then loose towards the end of two weeks.

Gosh darn! I just have to reiterate how dang happy I am with this decision. I already feel like a new woman. And the office that I go to... well words just can't express how happy they have made me and how friendly of a place it is. I just LOVE going there now, as opposed to my trips to the dentist before, when I just kind of thought "what's the point?" and "I hate my teeth, why do they need cleaned."



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Good News/Bad News

Which would you like first? The good news? Or the bad news? You're getting the good news first!

The Good News

I went in for my regular dental checkup and cleaning... no cavities!!! I was a little bit concerned with all of the horror stories of people getting cavities with Invisalign. Personally, I think it's just people not brushing and flossing correctly before they put their trays back in. BUT, that's just my opinion and I don't want to offend anyone. :)

And now...

The Bad News

As I have previously mentioned, I'm on the Invisalign Assist Program, so after every 10 trays, they do new digital scans to make sure everything is tracking correctly before making the next 10 sets of trays. Well... the new trays came in so I went to pick them up yesterday. Yay!! (Or so I thought before I went in.) A couple of issues;

• One tooth on the bottom is a little slow and isn't moving the way that it's supposed to, so they added more trays to the bottom. Not a huge problem since I was supposed to have 16 Lower and 23 upper trays to begin with, it makes things a little more even and I won't have to wear the bottom tray so long waiting to finish the top set and waiting to move on to refinements or retainers or whatever I chose to do when these are done.
  
  • They have also made some changes to the top since one of the front teeth is moving, but it's not straight up and down, it's now crooked. So I now have 27 trays (Upper and Lower), which how now increased my total time by 2 months! :(
• I now have 2 small attachments on one of my front teeth, one in the upper corner and one in the opposite lower corner to kind of torque the roots and get the tooth into the proper vertical position. 

I FREAKED OUT when they told me. Seriously kids, for a minute I had to hold back the tears! When I expressed my concerns, this was the response - "Well look at it this way. You could have brackets and braces." (At this point I HATE that she shares my silver lining kind of thinking.) To which I responded - "OR... I could have just NOT started this whole process at all. Never mind, I wouldn't like that at all." :)

• Some of the other attachments were removed and moved a little and one was removed completely.
  
  • Before I went in yesterday, I had 7 teeth with attachments. I walked out with attachments on 7 teeth, but 2 teeth have 2 attachments each, my front tooth and one on the bottom.

And Now For Some Positive Thinking

1. I am sure glad that I am on the Invisalign Assist program. If it hadn't been for all of this horrible news yesterday, these are things I would have needed fixed when I was done with the original 23 trays and would have definitely made for a VERY long refinement period. 
   
2. I will have to do these scans again at the end of tray 20. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that at that point I can get these 2 attachments back off of my front tooth. Who knows - maybe I will end up with less trays at that point.
3. In the last 24 hours, I have come to terms with the additional trays and the attachments on my front tooth. (and they are  VERY small in comparison to the other attachments that I have.) I was very paranoid with about it at first but asked a coworker to be honest with me and she said she couldn't tell when I was talking. 
4. I'm VERY grateful to have a dental professional that listens to my concerns and helps me rationalize things.
   
   I also realize that the next set of scans could reward me with even more trays and/or even worse attachments, but I'm not thinking about that. The end result is all I'm focused on right now. It's too late to turn back and even if some horribly placed attachments are noticeable, it's still better than the hideous gap I started out with!
   
   

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